


The Pin

by kardamon



Series: Stranger things happened [1]
Category: Hunger Games Series - All Media Types
Genre: 50th Hunger Games, Alcohol Withdrawal, Drama, Gen, Hunger Games Victors, POV Katniss Everdeen, Quarter Quell, Unresolved Emotional Tension, emotional angst, hayniss - Freeform, price of victory
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-18
Updated: 2016-11-02
Packaged: 2018-06-09 05:46:40
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 12
Words: 27,831
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6892525
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kardamon/pseuds/kardamon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A stray comment from Caesar Flickerman leads Katniss to watch the 50th Hunger Games much earlier, more thoughtfully and alone. Haymitch/Katniss-centered.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is probably the most Haymitch-centered story I've written so far, though it's told from Katniss' perspective. It takes place between the 74th and 75th Hunger Games, sometime after the Victory Tour, but before the announcement of the Third Quarter Quell rules (the timeline might be imperfect). I'm sticking to the canon where the major events are concerned, but I'm going to alter some details.  
> This is mostly a book-verse story, except for the fact that my Haymitch is the movie Haymitch (it's a personal thing. I just really like how he was portrayed by Woody Harrelson), so don't be surprised if he's described as blond or something like that.  
> I apologise in advance for all the errors. I don't have a beta-reader.  
> Lastly - I don't own Hunger Games.

It was a crispy, sunny day when Katniss finally worked up her nerve to ask her friend the question. They were sitting in the mayor's living-room, drinking hot milk and eating cookies, when Katniss' eye caught sight of a small, framed photograph standing on the mantle. It showed two identical girls dressed in their best Sunday dresses, their blond hair braided neatly and tied with ribbons. They looked unmistakably similar to Madge, their faces betraying a familiar bond clearer than any signature could and Katniss knew it had to be a picture of Madge's mom and aunt, probably taken when they had been in their early teens. It struck her that she couldn't even tell the girls apart and guess which twin was the tragically deceased one, and which was still alive.

She knew the story, of course. Not the details, but the general outline of it, which was enough for her to guess that she didn't want to know the rest.

Something was bugging her, though, ever since she came back from the Victory Tour. It was something Caesar said during one of the interviews. Something about the pin.

The pin. The Mockingjay pin Madge had given her before she'd been shipped off to the arena and which everyone in Panem seemed to recognise now. The one that once upon a time belonged to Maysilee Donner, the forgotten fallen tribute from District Twelve and the aunt Madge had never gotten the chance to meet, but whose face she saw every day when she looked at her mom.

_"…_ _and the famous pin, that returned on the arena, this time as a sign of victory…"_

That one word. _Returned._

Had Maysilee been wearing the pin during her Games?

Katniss wanted to ask Madge many times, but somehow, she always lost her courage at the last possible moment. This time, though, with the clear-eyed girl looking at her from across the room on the photo, Katniss finally got out the question.

"I thought you knew," Madge said, thankfully not upset about Katniss asking. "Yes, it was her token. Didn't your mom, or Haymitch tell you?"

"No, why would you think that?" Katniss asked taken aback, but also intrigued by the question.

"Your mom was friends with aunt Maysilee, didn't you know?"

"No," Katniss said surprised and thoughtful. "She never mentioned it."

"Perhaps it was too painful for her," Madge suggested. "I know it is for my mom."

"Probably." Katniss nodded. "And Haymitch?"

It was hard to imagine Haymitch being friends with anybody, but she suspected it must not had always been so. She also knew he'd been the only mentor in Twelve for a long time, though she wasn't sure if he was old enough to be Maysilee's mentor as well. For all she knew they could have all been school-mates, which raised a curious question of what her mom remembered of that time…

"Well… It was… the same year. You know. The Quarter Quell."

The realization hit Katniss with a nauseating force.

Hunger Games. They've been in the Hunger Games together.

"I didn't do the math," Katniss whispered stunned. "He didn't… I mean, do you know if they…" she swallowed, "…met there? They didn't fight, did they?"

_Did he kill her?_

„Oh, no, nothing like that," Madge reassured her quickly. "Quite the opposite, in fact. They were allies. They made it together quite far into the Games."

Katniss shuddered. She knew that having allies at the Hunger Games was a tricky business. One that always made you feel like you lost at the end – that is, if you lived long enough to get there.

"How did she die, then?" she asked giving in into a morbid curiosity.

"I don't know exactly. Mom once said that the arena killed her. She was very bitter with the gamemakers about that. Because someone must have… you know? Make that call. Decide that it was time for her to go, even if no-one attacked her."

They fell silent for a moment.

"I watched her games," Madge confessed suddenly. Katniss looked up sharply. "Not all of them. I didn't want to see her die. Just the beginning. As far as I was sure it was safe." Madge laughed humourlessly. "Well, you know what I mean. I know I probably shouldn't, but mom rarely talks about her, and I wanted to… I guess I wanted to get to know her, and as horrid as it sounds, that was my best chance to do so."

Strangely, Katnisss understood.

Madge hesitated before she spoke again:

"You know, if you'd like to see it, I…"

"Absolutely not!"

"…still have the recording. It's not just the Games, but the interviews, too."

"No, Madge, thank you, but I really don't think that's a good idea. I've had enough Games for the rest of my life. Besides, I can't imagine that Haymitch would be happy if I watched his Games."

Madge shrugged.

"I don't think he can blame you for that. I'm not going to talk you into it. It's not pleasant to watch, to be sure. But don't you think you should know what happened then, anyway? You know, with you being a mentor next year?"

Katniss grimaced.

"I don't really like to think about that."

"I can only imagine. But remember that it's going to be another Quarter Quell year this season."

Katniss felt a chill running down her spine. She hadn't even thought about that. As if being a mentor for the first time wasn't a gloomy enough perspective.

"Yeah," she said dejectively.

"You know what? You don't need to make that decision right now. I'll just give you the copy and you do with it whatever you like. Watch it, don't watch it… I won't even ask."

\- and before Katniss could say anything, Madge darted out of the room and came back in a minute with a small, flat package, trusting it into Katniss' hands.

"Here," she said. "Just in case you change your mind."

Katniss opened and closed her mouth.

"I… I don't even know what to say. Thank you, I guess. Though I really don't want to watch it."

Madge nodded in understanding and they didn't talk about that anymore.

On her way back to the Victors' Village the package seemed to be burning a hole under Katniss' jacket, but she went home convinced that she would never use Madge's offer and she stuffed the recording deep into her closet as soon as she walked into her room. In fact, she didn't think about it at all for the rest of the day, not even once, her mind seemingly shutting it out as effectively as the closet door that she placed the package behind. It was only after she had already prepared for bed that she found that the sleep just wouldn't come to her, no matter how much she tossed and turned. She lay wide awake, in the dead of the night, staring at the ceiling. And then her mind started to wander, flooded with unwanted thoughts.

Her head was spinning.

She thought of Maysilee, the girl who must have been her age when she had died and who had apparently been her mother's best friend which the latter had never told her. She thought of Rue, her own ally, whom she'd held in her arms as she had bled out. She thought of Peeta, the one who had miraculously escaped the fate so many tributes before him had succumbed to and had left the arena as the second victor, for the first time in the Games' history.

Surprisingly, though, most of all, she thought of Haymitch.

Had he known? Had he recognized the pin? How could he not? What must it have been to him, to unexpectedly see it again?

She fervently tried to remember his reaction to her when he first had a good look at her on the train after the Reaping, but all she could recall was that he had seemed to ignore her up to the point when she had almost stabbed him with a butter knife. He hadn't even met her eyes until then.

Was that part of the reason for his extreme – even for him – rudeness and the impressive – again, even for him – amount of alcohol he had managed to consume without killing himself that first day of their journey? Or maybe quite the opposite – in a roundabout way, had it been what made him take notice and ultimately take a chance on her? Because he certainly had done that, Katniss knew that much.

Haymitch might have been an obnoxious, cynic drunkard most of the time, but he had taken responsibility for the two of his tributes and when push came to shove, he really came through for them, especially her. He had been a pain to interact with, but he had done a good job as a mentor, both with coaching her and giving advice, and with monitoring her progress on the arena and sending her help and subtle clues at the most crucial moments. Peeta had always thought that Haymitch had been favouring Katniss, betting on her to win the Games and therefore investing more in helping her on the arena, but she had rejected that theory before, since judging from Haymitch's sour attitude toward her, he didn't seem too fond of her, so instead she chose to believe that he had just known that she had been more likely to understand his coded instructions and therefore make a better use of them for both of their sakes. Now she wondered, though…

She was quite sure that if he had recognized the pin, it must have hit a hidden spot inside him, and that it must have hit it hard. Plus, they _were_ surprisingly alike in many ways, almost disturbingly so – she couldn't deny that.

She sighed and tossed again.

Had it been the fact that she reminded him of Maysilee? Or that she reminded him of himself? God knew that would be a reason enough to both hate her and feel for her.

She cursed quietly and got up from the bed. She couldn't take it anymore. She paced the length of the room a few times, to and fro, until finally, she opened the closet and took out the package. She held it in her hands carefully, as if it was made of glass, and stared at it for a full minute in the moonlight, before slowly opening it.

 _What am I doing?_ – she asked herself incredulously, but she didn't stop as she crept across the room, put the recording into the right slot and switched the sound to the headphones. The room filled with faint, bluish light and Katniss flinched slightly as she saw the Hunger Games logo coming into the view. The whole thing had a dreamlike, unreal quality to it.

She hit play.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...and that's your cue to let me know if you'd like me to continue this story.


	2. the reaping

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm afraid I won't be able to give you regular updates as fast as this one, but just so you can get the taste of the actual story and decide if you like it, here it is.

The first thing she saw was Caesar Flickerman's face and she thought that the guy really was timeless. He appeared a little younger than the man she knew, but truthfully it was hard to tell with the thick layer of make-up coating his face. He enthusiastically welcomed everyone to the anniversary 50th Hunger Games and then the recaps from the reapings began.

There was something very wrong with that part of the process, something that became clear right at the beginning. Apparently, to celebrate the second Quarter Quell, the creators of the Games decided to add an extra twist into the mix: they doubled the number of the tributes.

Two girls and two boys from a district.

Twelve districts, four tributes per each one.

Forty-eight kids.

Forty-seven of them meant to end up slaughtered. One that would survive.

Katniss watched the brief snapshots from the reapings with mediocre interest. She had no real intention of getting to know the fallen tributes from the other districts. They were only relevant as potential enemies Haymitch and Maysilee had to fight. In truth, she was tempted to skip that part entirely, but she was too transfixed by the very fact she was even watching the entire thing to move from the spot where she was rooted.

The narrative seemed to slow down a bit when it finally reached District Twelve and Katniss realized it was because Haymitch had been that year's victor, so naturally the filmmakers were going to focus on his story.

She was momentarily confused when she saw only an escort but no mentor on the stage. She knew that there had been one other victor from Twelve before Haymitch, but she's never thought to ask when that had been and what had happened to them. She'd always assumed that he or she must have died sometime after Haymitch's Games, but it occurred to her with a sickening clarity that it was equally possible that they had already passed away when Haymitch had been reaped.

Did that mean that he had had no mentor? Or had someone from the other district been saddled with the additional charge? In either case, the situation seemed extremely unfavourable for the District Twelve tributes. It was obvious that without their own mentor they would be even less taken care of, and frankly, who could blame the other victors for looking out first for their own tributes, rather than the additional four from another district?  
Katniss started when the first name called was Maysilee's. The camera moved across the crowd to capture a close shot of the young tribute's face. It showed two look-alike blond girls clinging tightly to each other. For a second Katniss' heart skipped a beat, when the camera caught a sight of another girl standing nearby, tears streaming down her cheeks, and she recognized her own mother, decades younger than she knew her.

Apparently, there was some confusion about which twin was which and it seemed for a minute like the girls themselves were unwilling to disclose their identity, but after some whispering, at last they separated and only one of them walked toward the stage.

 _Capitolites had to have a blast with that. Imagine the drama -_ Katniss thought bitterly. She was sure they had eaten that up.

Next was a tall, but very skinny girl Katniss knew nothing about and a wide-eyed thirteen years old boy, both from the Seam. They didn't look like they stood much of a chance against eight well-trained Careers they were about to face on the arena.

Haymitch's had been the last name they had fished out of the bowl.

 _Almost off the hook_ \- Katniss thought when the camera moved again and she caught her first sight of the sixteen years old Haymitch.

He looked a little pale and his shoulders were tense, but he stood straight, with his head high, and the beginning of the all-too-familiar sarcastic smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth. She decided that he looked strong and – dare she say? – quite handsome, though it was clear from his clothes that he came from a dirt-poor family, since even his best outfit was worn out and not quite fitting his already tall frame – probably a hand-down from someone else.

Yet, there was something very different about his, something other than his youthful appearance, that she couldn't quite put her finger on. This was a pre-Games Haymitch – the one that might have been already hardened by tough life, but has not been broken yet.

A sharp cry snapped Katniss out of thoughts and made her look up pulling her attention back to the screen.

There was a commotion at the back, in the crowd gathered behind the rows of the teenagers. She saw a boy desperately trying to wiggle free from his mother's grasp and her mouth fell open.

The boy was too young to take part in the reapings – about ten years old, maybe? – but the scene was eerily similar to the one she remembered from her own reaping and she suddenly knew with a chilling certainty who the boy was – Haymitch's brother.

Haymitch had a brother. He had a family. Or rather - he had had a family. Where were they? What happened to them?

She didn't have time to ponder on the questions that suddenly arose in her head at the revelation, because the camera followed Haymitch as he stepped out of his row and headed toward the stage. She found herself holding her breath, unwilling to miss the tiniest detail of the scene unfolding in front of her eyes.

She saw a girl stepping out of the same age section on the opposite side of the square and quickly pushing her way through the crowd until she was close enough to briefly take Haymitch's hand as he walked by. Katniss stared wide-eyed as Haymitch bent his neck and placed a swift, firm kiss on the girl's lips before letting go of her hand and marching away without looking back. He turned around only when he was already up on the stage, and stared straight ahead, his gaze suspended somewhere above the heads of the gathered people.

The tributes have been chosen. The 50th Hunger Games reapings were over.

The screen darkened momentarily and Katniss used that brief pause to click it off before the next scene could come into focus.

The room was once again dark and silent, the whole house except for her in deep slumber. She looked out of the window and her gaze fell on the yard separating her house from Haymitch's. She knew his bedroom was upstairs, just like hers, but his window was dark. He probably drank himself to sleep again.

It was hard to comprehend that he'd been her age when he'd first moved into that house and that he's been living there alone ever since, for the last twenty four years. Or had he always been alone? She wasn't so sure anymore. But if not, when had that changed? Long enough for her not to remember and for people to stop talking.

This was too much. The recording had to even got to the actual Games part and she'd already had enough. She wasn't sure what she'd expected to see – she'd known Haymitch had been no Career and that going into the Games had been a personal hell for him and that it had changed him forever – but seeing was different than knowing and somehow what she saw was unexpected and unnerving in an entirely new way.

He'd been too much like her. She'd always known that she and Haymitch had been much more alike than both her and Peeta and him and Peeta, not only because of the similar background, but also thanks to the way they minds worked, operating on the same wavelength and capable of instantly understanding each other, though neither of them was too eager to admit that. But now…

Now looking at Haymitch was like looking at the broken mirror, seeing what could have been, if things hadn't worked out the way they had for her. If Peeta hadn't come home with her. If there had been no Prim or her mom, or Gale waiting for her back in Twelve. If she'd come back only to be welcomed by the sight of the empty Victors Village.

It could have been her. She could have ended up becoming someone like him. And let's be honest – Haymitch's life was a disaster. He was a living, walking proof that time didn't heal all wounds and that sometimes things only got worse and worse as it passed.

She could still hear him screaming from his own nightmare some nights. Mostly the nights when he somehow ended up going to bed sober.

 _Twenty four years_ – she thought. – _Or was it already twenty five? Good God. How long does it take to forget?_

But the answer was already there, at the back of her head, only waiting for her to ask the question.

Never. You never forget.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well? Do you think she should watch the whole Games or stop here?


	3. never could

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Enjoy while I'm still on a roll...

She didn't get much sleep that night and unsurprisingly was up with the sun the next morning. She felt restless and since she didn't want to wake anybody else with her pacing and stumbling around the house, she made an obvious choice and slipped out for a walk. She longed for the woods, but she wouldn't risk going outside the fence again after finding it wired the last time she'd been there. Still, she breathed a sigh of relief when the fresh air hit her face. It helped to clear her head.

She spent some time wandering aimlessly around the town until it got late enough for some shops to open. Since she got a little hungry by then, she stopped to buy some food and eat breakfast. She noticed that Ripper was out of business again and her thoughts instantly bounced back to Haymitch. She sighed inwardly before making a decision and heading back toward the Victors Village.

She walked into his house without knocking, already knowing from experience that waiting for him to answer the door was pointless.

"Haymitch?" she called out and only after seeing that he wasn't anywhere near to be found belatedly realized that it was still quite early.

She hesitated before coming up to the upper floor and searching further for him, but she remembered that she haven't seen him for a while and it bothered her that he didn't answer. She figured that at least gave her an excuse as to why she would feel the urge to pop in and check on him, so she crept up the stairs and tip-toed to his bedroom.

She hesitated again at the door, but by then she felt genuinely worried, so eventually she decided to just walk in.

"Haymitch?" she said again, this time quietly.

He lay there curled up on the bed, fully clothed and only wrapped in a blanket, as if he'd just lied down for a moment, but never expected to truly fall asleep. She took a few steps inside the room, toward him, but then stopped uncertainly. She felt like an intruder. It seemed wrong to disrupt his rest, or even to watch him as he was, looking strangely vulnerable from his fetal position on the bed. She didn't want to wake him, so she took a step back with every intention of walking out of the room, but her foot pressed on a squeaky floorboard and she winced internally at the loud sound.

Haymitch's body tensed and then, before she was able to register what happened, the illusion of vulnerability was gone when suddenly she was flat on her back and he was on the top of her holding her wrists down, his face inches from her own.

"Good morning," she deadpanned.

"You," he said as recognition filled his eyes and his grip relaxed. He had reacted on instinct, before taking a good look at the intruder. "What the hell are you doing here?" he asked getting up and off her.

"Just checking if you're still alive. I haven't seen hide nor hair from you for the last week and you didn't answer when I called you from downstairs."

"That's what you get for dropping for an unannounced visit at the crack of dawn," he glared at her.

"It's not that early," she argued, just for the sake of it. It wasn't. Not anymore. She dusted herself off after picking herself of the floor (which was much needed considering how dusty Haymitch's floor really was), all the while continuing to scrutinise him closely.

He was sickly pale, with dark circles under his eyes and it looked like his impressive leap at her had taken most of his remaining energy, because he was already breaking sweat. The impression was even more disconcerting by contrast to the image of his sixteen year old self freshly burned in her memory.

"You look like shit," she informed him briskly.

"Why, thank you, you look pretty awful yourself," he shot back without missing a beat.

"You ran out of booze," she deduced, ignoring his jab.

"You didn't happen to bring me some, did you?" he asked hopefully.

She just shook her head and he sat down on the edge of the bed heavily. It looked like he didn't even have enough strength to stand. For God's sake, when did that happen? She lived a minute away from him and she had no idea he'd been so bad! How he managed to remain such a recluse with both her and Peeta and their families living next doors was beyond her. He could have died in here and she wouldn't have even known!

"Come on," she said. "I've got some food with me. You could use a breakfast. And a shower," she added scrunching her nose. "How can you even stand it?"

"I manage," he replied dryly.

"Doesn't it bother you at all?" she wasn't sure why she seemed to have no internal censorship over her words where it came to Haymitch, but it's always been that way.

"Sweetheart, when you feel bad enough, you stop caring about little things like that. We'll talk when you get there."

She didn't really have anything to say to that, so instead she just kept her mouth shut and walked out of the room and got back downstairs. She put the remaining food from her bag on the kitchen table and opened a few cabinets in futile search for anything else edible. She heard Haymitch stumbling on his way down the stairs when he reluctantly followed her.

"Why is there no food in here?" she asked him when he finally plopped down on the chair. "Are you really on a liquid diet?"

"I ran out," he said curtly running a shaky hand through his hair.

"So what? That's it? You're just going to starve? Is that your grand plan?"

 _Was_ that his plan?

He shrugged carelessly and she felt anger bubbling up in her.

"You know, just because you finally brought your tributes home, it doesn't mean that you can curl up and die now," she spat and felt a strange satisfaction when his eyes narrowed and flashed with responding ire. "You need to stop this. Take a better care of yourself instead of rotting here. Giving up like that? – that's just selfish."

"Is that so?"

"Yes! Like it or not, but there are people counting on you. You are responsible for us and you still got work to do. We're going to need your help. You're not on a bloody retirement!"

"Oh, I'm sorry, is that how you ask for help?" Haymitch grinded out. "Is that what all this is about? You worried that I'll kick a bucket and you won't be able to use my invaluable expertise when the time comes? Well, I hate to break it to you, but I'm of no use to you anyway. You're on your own, kiddo."

"You don't get to quit, Haymitch."

"Believe me, I'm well aware of that. Probably better than you are." He no longer sounded mocking, just grim. "The thing is, it doesn't matter what I do, or even what you do – you and Peeta can be the best mentors in the world, but the next Games are going to be a disaster for Twelve. If you think any differently, you're deluding yourself, so let's just not think about that while we can, shall we?"

"What?" she asked barely audibly. There was something in the way he said that, that made all hair stand up on her back. "What are you talking about?"

He looked away and it only made the alarm bells go off louder in her head.

"I can't help you, Katniss," he said flatly, once again looking very tired. "Never could."

"But you did help me!" she exploded. "No! Look at me!" She waited until his glare was back on her. "You did! That's the truth! You saved me out there!"

"Yes!" he yelled back, losing his temper. "After twenty four years! That's how long it took! Do you really think I never tried before? That I just gave up from the beginning? Is that what you think? That that's why I never came back with a victor before, that I just let them all die? Because I didn't try?"

She felt a stab of guilt.

"I didn't…"

"What do you want me to say, sweetheart? That if you try really hard, it's going to be okay? It won't." His eyes were ablaze now and locked on hers. But it wasn't his wrath that scared her – it was the freezing numbness that lurked just beneath it as he talked. "I won't help you. Not because I don't want to, or because I don't care, but because nothing can help you at this point. It doesn't matter what you do or say. Here is the truth: there is no way that Snow would let someone from Twelve to win so soon again after what you did. He would never let you have that, even if you lucked out on the tributes. So prepare yourself for that, because the only thing we're going to bring home with us when we return from the Capitol this time, are two matching coffins. You'll fail. And they'll fall. If it won't be another tribute, then it'll a be a booby-trap. If not a trap, then a poisonous plant. If not a plant, then a mutt. If not a mutt, then a fire, acid rain, or a freaking ball lightning! They're going to die and it's going to be gruesome. This year, and the next one. And the year after that. I'd say, for the next five years at least. Then, you can try."

Katniss swallowed thickly. She backed away from him as if she was burned.

They stared at each other in complete silence. She knew he wanted to hurt her. She pushed him and he pushed back. He lashed out because she hit a particularly sore spot, but when she looked at him she felt as if her stomach was slowly filling with lead, because with every passing second it was sinking in for her with a terrifying certainty that he wasn't lying either.

"Go to hell," she choked out.

His "Already in here!" chased her as she ran out of the house.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What? You didn't seriously expect them to be nice and cuddly, did you?


	4. Such a tragedy (the parade and the interviews)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was generously betaed by Gonsalsy - spare a warm thought for her! :)

Contrary to her earlier nagging feeling of guilt, it was almost with vindictive satisfaction that Katniss fired up the recording Madge had given her for the second time. She knew it was childish to feel this way, since while Haymitch hadn't been nice to her, ultimately all he had done was no more and no less than tell her the truth, just in a harsher than necessary fashion. It wasn't like she was really doing anything forbidden, either, but it seemed a little like an act of defiance to watch his Games without him knowing.

She was greeted by a familiar sight of the Capitol promenade that every tribute had once seen.

Of course. The parade. She had forgotten she would see that too. It was weird to see all the tributes gathered together at one place and dressed up in outfits fit for a carnival. She watched them wave to the spectators with smiles on their faces, knowing that all of them sans one would have to die within approximately two weeks. They had been quite a crowd.

Once she took a better look at the colourful flow of chariots, she was instantly reminded just how lucky she had been to be assigned to Cinna's supervision. She tried to single out Haymitch, but it wasn't easy since apparently that year's stylists' grand idea for the District Twelve tributes had been to put them into black jumpsuits and cover them from head to toe in dark, glittering powder that was probably supposed to imitate coal dust – including their faces. It made it harder to recognise who was who, but once she remembered that Haymitch had been a few good years older than the other male Twelve tribute, she was able to find him without further difficulty. He was holding a gilded pick-axe and somehow managed to look utterly bored. She was pretty certain no one had noticed him after that kind of introduction.

Next up were the training results, but that was covered pretty quickly since they weren't showing the evaluation itself, just the scores. Haymitch scored slightly above the average and higher than the other tributes from his district, getting him outside the range of cannon fodder, but still not high enough to draw much attention to himself. She didn't know what he had showed them. She had a vague idea that he had some skills with knives, but that was about as far as her knowledge on the subject extended.

She braced herself for the upcoming interviews, sensing that that part could be harder to watch, though admittedly informative. Thankfully for her it turned out to be heavily edited after the Games had ended, probably because the filmmakers had decided not to bore the public with too many faces and details. Instead they focused on introducing who she was guessing were the few key players and glossed over the rest, but it was still overwhelming to watch due to the large number of tributes.

She purposely made herself not pay close attention to the other tributes' stories, firmly forbidding herself to feel any sympathy toward anyone in particular, instead choosing to feel collectively sorry for them all. She couldn't afford to dwell too closely on their individual fates. She was doing good staying true to her resolution, but of course she couldn't help but falter once the tributes from her home district showed up one after the other. And then, of course, things got even worse when she came face to face with Maysilee Donner again.

Katniss' armor cracked even deeper when Caesar asked Maysilee about her interest in botanic and healing plants and if she thought there was any way she could use her knowledge during the Games. It gave Katniss an inkling as to how the bond between her mom and Maysilee had been formed. Maysilee had a sweet smile that didn't drop as she politely answered Caesar by telling him calmly that what could heal you could also kill you. Katniss wasn't sure if she was more disturbed by her words or pleased by the minuscule almost-falter in Caesar's congenial expression.

She didn't have any time to recover from Maysilee's appearance when it was replaced by Haymitch's entrance. It seemed that his stylist did a better job this time, because he actually looked really good for a change. His clothes and make-up weren't over the top and one would never guess it was probably his first time wearing expensive clothing from the way he was holding himself. While he didn't have the classic clean-cut-square-jaw-and-straight-nose handsome look working for him, he was surprisingly easy on the eyes. He did have some kind of "charming asshole" type of allure on his side, which, Katniss decided, must have frozen and morphed into his current dry sense of humour over the years. He was playing up the arrogance that came quite naturally to him, but his eyes remained sharp during the whole interview and she realised that he was a better actor than she was.

Katniss almost smiled when she heard him replying to Caesar's opening question on how he felt about the Hunger Games having 100% more competitors than usual with a quick "they'll still be 100% as stupid as usual, so I figure my odds will be roughly the same". It had the exact amount of bite that she could imagine the Haymitch she knew would have used as well. Her smile died when Caesar asked if the girl they had seen at the reaping had been someone special, which Haymitch denied with a stone face saying that he just kissed every girl that happened to run into him. She heard the answering laughter from the audience, but didn't find the scene amusing, somehow sensing that Haymitch had been secretly pissed off by the question. The suppressed guilt and disgust came back with a vengeance when she realised that, for a second, she had almost started enjoying what she was watching. The fact that she knew she didn't have to worry for the life of the only tribute she knew personally and the time that had passed made it frighteningly easy to forget that these were real people, not characters in some drama. She watched the rest of the interview in a somber mood before pausing the recording and taking off the headphones, but not quickly enough to miss the image changing into a panoramic shot of lush green landscape she barely recognized as her first glimpse of the 50th Hunger Games arena.

She thought that Haymitch had done quite well on the interview, but it still didn't seem memorable enough for anyone to find him outstanding in the bunch of other tributes and peg him for a champion at that point. She didn't think anyone expected him to win.

Suddenly, she heard someone's steps on the stairs and her heart almost leapt to her throat as she hurriedly turned off the projector and fumbled to hide the recording in blind panic, as if caught doing something indecent.

"Katniss?" her mother's voice called. "Are you in here? I could use some help and I hoped you would give me a hand!"

"Coming!" she called back and took a steadying breath before getting up and stepping out of the room. Her heart was still pounding.

"There you are," her mother said seeing her when she came downstairs. "Can you hold the ladder while I take these drapes off? It's wobbly and I don't want to break my neck."

"Sure, mom. Do you want me to climb it instead?"

"No, it's okay, just hold it still."

"Hey, mom," Katniss said, an idea occurring to her. Maybe she could solve at least one mystery. "I was just wondering… did you know Haymitch when he was younger?"

"I can't say I did, not really," her mom said concentrating on her work. "I knew his name and what he looked like, but we weren't friends. He just lived on the other side of the town and we never really talked, and later, well, he lived here."

"Do you know what happened to his family? Why is he alone?"

"Oh yes. It was such a tragedy, everyone heard about that."

"A tragedy?" Katniss asked.

"Well, his father had been dead for years, I don't even know how he died, but his mother and brother were still around when he got reaped. Imagine that – they all died shortly after he won! Even his girlfriend got caught in the same..." she paused and hesitated for a second before finishing the sentence slowly: "...accident. It almost seemed like there had been some kind of a hex hanging over the family. He really had a bad year, that's for sure," she added in a rush, almost like she was trying to cover for what she said before.

"An accident?" Katniss echoed, her mouth suddenly dry. She didn't know what all of that meant, but she a bad feeling about it. "When? What kind of accident?"

"I think it was about two weeks after his Games. Haymitch had not returned from the Capitol yet – I remember because, well, he was the first victor in years, so we all knew when he was supposed to be back… you know yourself that it takes some time before they put the victors back on the train – all these interviews, galas and crowning the winner, not to mention the healing… Anyway, it was such a strange thing… The Abernathys, they kept geese. I imagine that was how they kept afloat over the years, in addition to whatever Haymitch could earn working after school. Mrs. Abernathy had a stall in the market where she sold whatever she could out of those birds: meat, eggs, lard, hand-made pillows and duvets filled with feathers… I think we even used to have one of those… As you can imagine, they had to have quite a flock to manage that. People said that it all started with the geese honking in the middle of the night. Then there was a loud crash when one of the beams holding the ceiling gave out and the whole part of the house collapsed. See, they were going to move to the Victors Village, but they hadn't gotten around to that yet and had been still living in the old house. They were saying later that Mrs. Abernathy had been probably killed on the spot, crushed by the beam, but her little boy had been still alive, trapped inside, calling for help. I'm just glad that the poor woman didn't live to see that, because within seconds the house was on fire, as if someone put a torch to a haystack. Probably a candle turned over at the impact, or a spark from a fireplace… With all the feathers and pots of grease in the house… Well you can imagine how quickly the fire spread."

"And the girl? Haymitch's girlfriend? How did she get there?"

"You know, I don't remember her name. She lived down the street and ran to see what happened – when she heard the little boy she just rushed inside to find him and get him out – but then another beam broke and blocked the door… They couldn't get them out."

"What are you saying? That they burned alive?" Katniss asked horrified.

"Probably choked on the smoke before that happened."

Katniss swallowed. It was hard to wrap her head around everything she'd just heard.

Her mother glanced at her hesitantly, as if belatedly realising who she was talking to. "I heard Haymitch killed all the geese when he got back," her mom added quietly. "Snapped their necks one by one, they said. But maybe that part is just wild gossip." She stepped down the ladder. "Here. All done. Thank you. Why do you ask about that, anyway?"

"No reason," she whispered, an icy weight setting in her stomach.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, how did you like my take on the back story? Don't forget to let me know!


	5. He likes him better

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi, guys! I'm sorry it took me so long to update. I needed to write more of this story before I decided what fits where. The good news is, now I did, there shouldn't be long wait between the next few updates.
> 
> Big thanks to Gonsalsy for betaing this for me and all her advice.
> 
> This chapter is a little different, but I thought we could all use a break before we dive back into the heavy stuff.

"Pass me the salt."

Katniss blinked and slowly resurfaced from the deep well of her own troubled thoughts that kept dragging her back to the seemingly bottomless pit. She looked up surprised to see her sister sitting peacefully across the table from her, the setting sun lighting golden sparks in her pale blond hair.

Katniss smiled weakly and granted her request. Prim frowned.

"Are you alright?" she asked looking between Katniss' absentminded expression and her almost untouched plate.

"Yeah. I've just got a lot on my mind," Katniss said catching herself staring out of the window and onto the yard. She saw the door in the house across the yard open, but instead of the distinct frame of her mentor, another familiar figure appeared in the doorway: the one and only, Peeta Mellark.

"You've been distracted lately. Did something happen?" Prim's voice once again pulled Katniss out of her reverie.

"No. No, Prim, nothing happened," she said quickly finally forcing herself to focus. "I miss the woods. I've had trouble sleeping… again. Butted heads with Haymitch. Again. And I'm not talking to Peeta. Still." She sighed. "Annnd now he's coming here," she added glancing outside and seeing that Peeta was making his way toward her house. "Great."

Prim shot her a knowing look.

"Are you going to stay and meet him, or do you want me to take this?" she asked and Katniss felt instantly grateful for her understanding. She shook her head.

"Thanks, but I have to face him sometime," she said. "Might as well stop being a coward. He's probably just bringing us something from the bakery," she guessed looking at the stuffed bag slung across Peeta's shoulder.

There was something she wanted to ask him, anyway.

She braced herself for a healthy dose of awkwardness and an automatic pang of guilt when she heard her mother answering the door and then both hers and Peeta's voices closing in.

Peeta looked surprised to see her at the table – so, he might have noticed that she'd been avoiding him more often than not.

"Hi," he said smiling a little unsurely.

"Hi," she replied feeling like the least eloquent person in the world.

"Hi, Peeta!" Prim chimed brightly. "What's with the bag?"

Thank God for Prim.

"Sorry for interrupting your meal. I was just going home from the bakery and I thought I would bring you some of these," Peeta jumped in eagerly opening the bag. "Here," he said taking out a loaf of bread.

"That's so nice of you, Peeta," their mom said taking it from him. "Would you like to join us? I can make a plate for you…" she trailed off.

"Thank you, Mrs. Everdeen, but I should probably go home anyway. I just wanted to drop this and I'll be on my way. I also got you some cookies. I hope you'll like them," he said putting a paper bag on the table. "And these," he took out another bag with cheese buns and handed it to Katniss, "are for you."

"Thank you," was all she was able to say.

The silence between them stretched uncomfortably. Katniss' mom made herself scarce saying something about how she needed to check on things in the kitchen. Prim made a move as if she thought of leaving too, but Katniss shot her a quick glare and she stayed put.

Peeta shifted his weight and she could tell that he was thinking about just saying goodbye, but then Katniss said:

"I saw you visited Haymitch, too?"

Peeta looked up seemingly grateful for the simple fact that she was willing to keep talking, no matter the topic.

"Yeah, I thought he could use some fresh bread, too," he said.

"Good. At least it means he has some food," Katniss said finally finding some conversational ground. "Last time I saw him, I wasn't sure he was eating anything. Is he doing any better?"

If there was anyone she could share her worry over Haymitch with, it was her fellow tribute.

Peeta raised his eyebrows.

"Compared to what?"

She only grimaced.

"I wish he'd at least hired someone to cook and clean the house for him, if he won't do that himself. That place is a pigsty."

"You know he won't let anybody in there," Peeta reminded her.

"He lets us in," she pointed out.

"Somehow, I don't see him making any more exceptions any time soon."

Katniss shook her head.

"How in the world did he even make it so far? Or is he getting worse?"

"What about Hazelle?" Prim suddenly piped in, unexpectedly transporting the conversation from the realm of idle talk into something much more tangible. "She's not exactly a stranger and I'm sure she'd be glad for an opportunity to make some honest money."

"That could actually work," Katniss said surprised. "Nice, Prim."

Peeta looked from one sister to the other.

"You're serious, aren't you?" he rubbed his forehead. "Well… I'm not saying it's a bad idea, but good luck with making that happen."

"You should talk to him," Katniss said decidedly.

Peeta looked at her as if she had sprouted a second head.

"No, you should do that. If anyone can convince him, it's you, not me."

"You're kidding me, right?" she sounded half-exasperated, half-amused. "He can't stand me. There is no way he'll do something if I ask him to. We fight every time we talk."

This time she had two sets of eyes trained on her mirroring her own expression. She squirmed losing some of her confidence under the double gaze.

"Maybe, but he'll forgive you," Peeta stated matter-of-factly. "You're his favourite. The man adores you… in his own way."

Katniss let out a snort she could not contain any longer, because the words "Haymitch" and "adores" clearly didn't belong in one sentence.

"Oh, come on. Not this again. That was about the Games, not about me, you know that. He just thought that with you helping me, between the three of us, I had a decent chance of making it home. He told me as much himself. _The man_ can barely say two words to me without mocking or insulting me."

Peeta and Prim exchanged a look that in all honesty got a little on Katniss' nerves. She didn't know what it was about the subject that made it so important to stress her point, but all that talk about Haymitch gave her a funny feeling.

"Katniss, the only people I've even seen Haymitch acting moderately polite toward, are the ones I know for sure he hates," Peeta said blandly. "Did you ever think of that?"

Apparently, she didn't.

"He likes you better," she said stubbornly.

"Just go there and talk to him. Or… you know what? Better yet, talk to Hazelle, send her there and let him deal with that."

"You do realise how furious that would make him, don't you? He'll just kick her out."

"So what? Maybe he will. Or maybe he'll get over it." He looked at her and sighed seeing she still wasn't convinced. "You tell her," he told Prim before making his way to leave.

"What?" Katniss snapped once he was gone.

Prim's eyes darted toward her before she looked down avoiding Katniss' glare.

"It's in the little things," she said almost apologetically.

"What?," she repeated. "What things?"

Prim shrugged.

"The way he looks at people sometimes when they come near you, close enough to touch. The way he stands next to you when they're filming you. The little things."

"Who? Haymitch?" Katniss asked perplexed.

Prim only nodded.

"How does he stand?" the note of incredulity rang clear in Katniss' voice.

"Like he's ready to jump in front of you."

"What in the world are you talking about, Prim?"

Her sister looked straight at her and said calmly:

"He might like Peeta better. But he loves you more."


	6. The Games p. 1: the arena (not just luck)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello my dear readers! :)
> 
> I'm back with a new chapter. It got too long and I had to split it, so you're going to get this one in two parts. It splits unevenly, with the first part much longer than the second. I'll try to post the other one quickly.
> 
> Credit for betaing goes to Gonsalsy.
> 
> Disclaimer: I don't own the Hunger Games and this chapter relies on the original even heavier than the others.

" _Katniss!"_

She sat up abruptly, gasping for air, her skin sticky with sweat. Her heart was still racing from fright, the voice echoing in her mind from the depth of the nightmare that she couldn't even recall upon waking, but which she knew to be some disturbing mix of imagination running wild and memory. Most of her nightmares were memory-based, but there was something different about this one.

" _They don't take these things lightly."_

She fell back onto the bed and closed her eyes, breathing deeply and trying to place the phrase that had made its way into her dreams.

She jolted and looked around confused when a distant yet familiar scream resonated sharply throughout the night.

Haymitch.

For a moment, realities clashed, and her not fully awaken brain couldn't make sense of what she was hearing, but then she exhaled and forced her muscles to relax. It seemed that she wasn't the only one having trouble finding any rest that night. Had his cry somehow influenced her dreams, his own nightmare colliding with hers and meshing them into one?

One would have thought that the walls and the empty yard between the houses should be enough to dampen the sounds, but it wasn't. It made her question the wisdom of gathering all the victors in one living area and wonder how it was even possible to sleep at all in the other Victors Villages, where the rate of victors per district was higher.

She shuddered and clenched her teeth when the scream repeated. She couldn't stand the sound. It was gripping and twisting something inside her, leaving her with a desire to hit something just to make it stop.

_Shouldn't he be waking up by now?_ \- she thought grumpily, shocking herself with her own cold-heartedness.

" _This is serious,_ " the voice echoed again in her mind, another wisp of her dream resurfacing randomly, but this time she recognized the person speaking.

She tossed angrily and pulled the pillow over her head, pressing it tightly against her ears.

* * *

It wasn't until several days later when she dared to fire up the video again. She was filled with apprehension about watching the actual Games, but she couldn't get the image of the vibrant arena out of her mind and in the end, it was only a matter of time before the sickening, unexplained pull of the forbidden, horror-filled knowledge won over.

This time she made sure that she was alone at home, her mother visiting a patient in town and Prim at school. Even so, she was still using the headphones – she didn't want to risk some stray sounds leaking through the walls and reaching Haymitch's ears. He didn't need her to further feed his nightmares by accidentally waking the ghosts of the past. She wouldn't want to be surprised by that kind of reminder either.

The recording started playing from the exact same point she'd paused it, so she had only a few seconds to take in the scenery before the gong announced the beginning of the Games. Even such a short time was enough to realise that the Quarter Quell arena was yet another thing that set that year's Hunger Games apart from the others. There was only one way to describe it: it was hauntingly beautiful. Katniss barely kept her mouth from falling open as her eyes wandered from one detail of the idyllic landscape to another, complete with the fantastic-shaped flowers and jewel-like butterflies floating lazily above them. The Cornucopia was placed in the middle of the most breathtaking meadow Katniss had ever seen, framed by green woods on one side and a distant snow-capped mountain on the other. The sheer variety of colours was enough to make one's head spin, making the place look more like an earthly paradise than the scene of a deadly spectacle. Apparently, Katniss wasn't alone in her assessment, if the looks on the faces of the stunned tributes was anything to go by. They looked around blinking, as if not sure if they weren't transported into some kind of a dreamland, and obviously thrown off. Yet, as Katniss stared in awe at the state-of-the-art arena, the first question that tickled her mind through the layers of her amazement was: what kind of trick was that?

Some of the tributes gazed in a daze at the azure sky with fluffy white clouds for so long that they missed the signal for the Games' start and put themselves at a disadvantage, as their rivals who were blessed with better reflexes raced for the weapons and supplies. The movement in the arena made Katniss shift her focus and look for the district Twelve tributes just as the camera closed on Haymitch running across the meadow. It seemed that he was quick-thinking enough to shake off the surprise in time to give him a head start on many opponents and he made it relatively easy to the zone where the packages were scattered.

_Don't run toward the Cornucopia, huh?_ – Katniss thought watching her future mentor doing just that, against his own advice years later to her, and grabbing one of the stuffed backpacks and something that looked like a hunting knife.

She had to give it to him, though: it wasn't just luck that made it possible for him to get away with going against this particular piece of wisdom, it was his ability to keep his head straight and to make swift choices. He made it to the stash before most of the tributes even stepped down from their plates and immediately turned on his heel after he got his hands on the care-package of choice. He didn't let greed blind him and waste time on searching for anything else - he didn't even try to reach the actual Cornucopia where the most prized weapons lay. By the time he was making his way back, multiple tributes were already in full-blown fight mode, arming themselves along the way, forcing Haymitch to take sudden turns to narrowly avoid blows and flying objects and even jump over one of the dead bodies, but he took it like a pro.

That is, until she saw him lose his footing when one of the tributes he was passing tripped him up and brought him down. The tribute threw the weight of his own body at Haymitch, going for the backpack. Haymitch twisted in the other boy's grasp, taking a punch to the gut, but responding by slashing blindly with his knife and cutting easily into his opponent's throat. By the stunned look on Haymitch's face Katniss guessed that he hadn't exactly planned on that, and that it was the first time he'd killed someone. It all happened so fast that she barely had time to see how the other tribute looked before he collapsed, but she was sure Haymitch had every minuscule detail of his face burned in his memory. She watched Haymitch get up clumsily and stagger a bit before quickly getting his bearings back and heading straight to the woods without one backward glance.

The heavenly meadow was quickly turning into a bloody battlefield and Katniss found herself shivering. She'd been watching Hunger Games her whole life, every year like a clockwork, and the transmissions never failed to leave her horrified, but it was different now that she'd been in one; what was worse, it didn't seem to get any easier, the impression amplified by the fact that every image triggered a memory, resonating through her mind and body, as if every one of her cells was branded.

By the time the initial bloodbath was over, eighteen out of forty-eight tributes were dead, in that number the younger boy from Twelve. He didn't last more than ten minutes. The girl from the Seam outlived him by about two hours – she managed to hide and was doing good until she picked one of the golden fruits growing in the arena and dropped dead after biting it.

It was slowly becoming obvious that the whole arena was one big, sweet-smelling honey-trap. There didn't seem to be a single thing that wasn't poisonous, starting with the lovely fruits and any other plant growing in there. Animals, no matter how innocent looking, were both feral and inedible, their bites poisonous as well – including fluffy rabbits and squirrels. The butterflies stung, and even the fragrance of the delicate flowers seemed to have ill effects on humans when inhaled directly.

_Go figure_ , thought Katniss watching a tribute admire a rose-bush and then fainting after smelling one of the white flowers, so similar to the ones president Snow preferred.

After a while, it was clear that the only food to be found in the arena came from the Cornucopia, which meant that the tributes would be forced to fight between themselves even sooner. To make things more interesting for the viewers, Katniss supposed, the poisons worked differently: some of them immediately, and some with delay, making the unfortunate victims bleed, spasm, change colour, produce foam from their mouths, or paralyzing them. It got worse, though. Katniss understood it when she saw Haymitch checking the contents of his backpack and looking thoughtfully between the bottle full of water he found inside and one of many bubbly, crystal clear streams that crossed the woods, and then sticking to drinking from the bottle. It turned out that he was right to be suspicious, because from her outsider perspective she could see what happened to some other tributes after drinking the water from the streams. She knew from her own experience how awful dehydration could make you feel, so she had a good idea what the tributes were about to face soon.

It didn't surprise her when Haymitch, who – after fighting off the pack of adorable looking, carnivorous squirrels – had been marching relentlessly away from the center of the arena from the beginning, hid himself in a hurry under some kind of tarp-like material he found in his backpack when the sky clouded the second day of the Games – it wouldn't be a stretch to assume that the rain could be acid. After a minute, though, he stuck his finger out cautiously, as if he was curious to see if it would get burned, and when it didn't, he seemed really conflicted about something. At first Katniss didn't know what he was doing and held her breath when he licked his finger, even though she knew he wouldn't die, but then she understood his dilemma: the water in the bottle wouldn't last forever. It was going to run out sooner rather than later, and while checking any new source of it was dangerous, there was no telling when it was going to rain again. Assuming the rainwater was safe, Haymitch wouldn't want to miss what could be his only chance to refill his supply either. He seemed to come to some kind of decision, because he got up and rearranged the tarp so it would gather the water rather than provide a shelter. It was a risky move, but she supposed one had to take a few of those if they were to have a chance to survive the Hunger Games. She could also see the logic behind his choice, or at least the wishful thinking that the Gamemakers would provide at least one source of drinkable water not wanting to disappoint the public with showing one tribute after another dying of thirst instead of engaging in a fight. It wasn't a spectacular kind of death.

She was pulled away from Haymitch's attempts to solve provisions issues as the filmmakers captured other, more pressing events taking place in the arena. The initial bloodbath and the unpleasant qualities of the surrounding fauna and flora had taken down about half of the tributes, but that only meant that their numbers were reduced to that of the regular Hunger Games. The remaining tributes were the stronger, smarter, or luckier ones, so – after learning about the dangers of the arena – the rate of deaths per day dropped. This was probably why the Gamemakers decided to spice things up by turning the mountain into a volcano, not only killing another batch of tributes in the process, but also confining the remaining ones to the woods.

That was when Katniss finally got her opportunity to catch up on how Maysilee was doing, too.

It turned out, the Donner girl was quite resourceful. For someone who had left the Cornucopia with only a bowl, some dried beef, and a blow gun, she wasn't doing half bad. She had turned the blow gun into a deadly weapon by lacing the darts with some of the wide array of poisons available in the arena and was living on the supplies she took from the fallen tributes. She was quite lethal, attacking from hiding and making the element of surprise her main forte. It seemed that the old saying once again proved to be true: appearances could be deceiving. Maysilee was a tough girl. It couldn't be easy for a healer to switch into a killer mode overnight, but she wasn't showing any weakness. To her credit, she used only the fast-working poisons.

It was following Maysilee that brought Katniss and all the intended viewers once again toward Haymitch. Of course, Katniss knew it would happen eventually – she'd already learned that the two had been allies. As hard as watching that was probably going to be, she couldn't deny that she felt a little curious about that part. It would be strange to see Haymitch working with someone instead of against them.

It all happened very fast. One moment the camera was showing three Careers walking confidently through the woods and Maysilee barely making it on time to hide from view, and in the next the pack stumbling upon Haymitch, who had been forced to turn around when he had encountered a wall of tightly woven hedges and had been resting nearby after a long walk.

The fight was quick and brutal. It was three on one, with the Careers well-trained and strong, so it was clear from the beginning that Haymitch didn't stand much of a chance. He surprised Katniss once again when he was able to put his speed to good use and managed to kill not one, but two of the attackers with a knife, impressively so, before the third one disarmed him. Katniss felt a chill when she saw how efficient he was while fighting for his life and it confirmed for her something she had already believed true: while it took a hell of a lot of luck to win the Hunger Games, you didn't become a victor just by accident. If Katniss had had any doubts whether or not Haymitch Abernathy was a dangerous man, they were gone now.

The third Career held a knife to Haymitch's throat ready to slit it when the dart hit his neck and he stilled before slumping like a puppet with its strings cut. Haymitch looked up just in time to see Maysilee coming out of the woods. They stared at each other momentarily frozen, unsure what to do. They knew only one of them could live, but it was different to fight strangers than someone from your home district. Even if they hadn't known each other well before, they'd spent the last two weeks in the training center together, more or less as a team. Katniss couldn't even imagine how their time there had looked like without a mentor.

Finally, Maysilee broke the silence:

"We'd live longer with two of us," she offered, and they both seemed relieved once she did.

"Guess you just proved that," Haymitch said rubbing the back of his neck and the remains of the tension drained. "Allies?"

He tossed her his bottle without a word and her eyes shone at the sight of water. He watched as she drank greedily, looking pleased that he had something to give in exchange for saving his life, rather than annoyed that she was using all of his reserve. Alliance made sense from every angle except for the emotional one, but for the moment it was easier to call a truce.

The truth was, most people didn't want to kill each other.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I made getting away from the Cornucopia a little harder for Haymitch than in canon - I wanted to show him confronting someone before meeting Maysilee. I know you all know most of what happened in this chapter from the book, but I hope I managed to keep it interesting.


	7. The Games p.2: Maysilee (they could have been friends)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, here is the shorter part. All disclaimers still apply.
> 
> Betaed by Gonsalsy.

They started their alliance with checking the dead Careers' packs and salvaging whatever looked valuable. They split the provisions evenly. Haymitch snickered shaking his head when he took his share of the neatly wrapped packages of processed food to put them into his backpack.

" _Something funny?"_ Maysilee asked.

" _Just the thought: I'm probably still eating better than I did at home_."

" _Well, it's not like we have time to get fat, anyway_ ," Maysilee snapped at him and from her expression Katniss could see that she meant it as a jab, but Haymitch surprised her by actually chuckling in response.

And that was how it started.

They did better together, as expected.

They worked together. They fought together. They took shifts sleeping. But also, perhaps most importantly, they bickered. They argued, teased and mocked, tossing back and forth offences, sarcastic comments, jokes and puns, some of them better, some downright terrible, but all laced with the same brand of black humor.

" _Hey, Donner, you still alive out there?"_

" _You're killing me." "Not yet."_

" _Don't make me hurt you." "That's what she said."_

" _You can eat me if I die first." "Well, aren't you sweet?" "Wouldn't you like to know?"_

" _If we starve so much that we have to eat our own flesh to survive, your tongue is the first thing I'll cut out, Abernathy"_

" _How do you feel about biting dust?"_

" _Would it kill you to slow down?"_

" _Why don't you go and die already?"_

At first Katniss didn't pay it much mind, but then she noticed that there were times when it felt like they were shown on screen between the bloody episodes from the other parts of the arena solely to let the audience see those exact exchanges. That was when she understood something else about the Games, something she hadn't thought in depth about before. Haymitch had told her once that the key to survival was to get the viewers to like you, but she hadn't fully understood the implications of that until that moment. Being the crowds' favourite had its dark side: if everyone wanted to see you all the time, it might get you presents from sponsors, but also the attention of the people in the control room, because yes, they wanted to watch you, but they didn't want to watch you do something mundane, like walk, sleep, or eat your meals. They wanted to watch you kill or die, or escape dangers, so to avoid that, you had to give them something else to entertain them. You needed to stay interesting, or the Gamemakers were going to take care of that for you.

That had been another upside of the romance angle in her own Games, she realized. That was why she and Peeta had been allowed to stay in peace in their cave for so long. They hadn't been fighting other tributes, but they had given people something else to focus on, something they had equally enjoyed watching. Haymitch and Maysilee, though, they had something else to offer, something that seemed even more horrifying to Katniss. While she and Peeta had provided people with a love story, Haymitch and Maysilee had served as a goddamn comic relief in that nightmarish spectacle.

So the Gamemakers allowed them to wander for the time being without releasing any new plague upon them, leaving them to deal with what was already there, waiting for them in the arena, while the number of remaining opponents continued to slowly decrease.

Haymitch seemed determined to keep moving, until it was obvious that he didn't just want to run away from the center, but was searching for something, though what he hoped to find on the peripheries was unclear. At Maysilee's insistence, he finally revealed that he wanted to reach the edge of the arena, but it looked like even he himself wasn't sure what he expected to see there.

_Maybe there is something we can use –_ was all he told Maysilee.

They continued their journey, at last finding a way to get through the impossible hedge, that turned out to be not just a wall, but more of a maze.

The view that revealed itself after Maysilee and Haymitch got on the other side made Katniss think that whoever had built the arena hadn't seriously thought that anyone would make it that far or that the viewers would ever get to see that part of it. In contrast to the rest of the arena, there was nothing glamorous or intricate about the strip of dry, flat land leading to the cliff that lay beyond the hedge. Katniss watched Maysilee and Haymitch walk toward the very edge of the cliff, but all she could see when they got there and looked down, were some jagged rocks far below.

" _That's all there is, Haymitch. Let's go back,"_ said Maysilee.

But he didn't want to go back. He wanted to stay right where he was. And Maysilee agreed to that, only she said that she should leave instead. It was a good time to split, she argued, since there were only five tributes left, including the two of them.

" _I don't want it to come down to you and me,"_ she explained. No matter how reasonable that sounded, it didn't make it feel any less wrong. For a moment Katniss almost expected Haymitch to come up with something resembling their usual snarky banter, but when he didn't, she knew that that was it. They were going to part ways and break the alliance.

" _Okay,"_ he said instead, and for some reason that one-word reply made Katniss more sad than anything she'd seen so far in these Games. She thought with sorrow that had it been possible for Maysilee to survive the Games, too, these two might have actually been more than allies – they could have been friends.

How do you say goodbye to someone with whom you've spent every waking second for the last few days, depending on them to keep you alive, when you know that the next time you'll see them, you'll have to kill each other? Apparently, sometimes, you _don't_.

There was no "good luck" (that might have been too ironic, anyway) or "goodbye". No handshake, no nothing. At the end, Haymitch wasn't even looking at Maysilee when she walked away without saying another word.

Katniss clicked off the screen before she was even aware that she was holding the remote. It was an impulse, irrational, but powerful. She saw there was almost no recording left, but all of sudden she didn't want to watch it anymore. She didn't want to see what happened next and how it ended. At that moment, Maysilee had been still alive, but that was about to change rather quickly judging from the fact that the video was almost over. Katniss didn't want to watch her die. Maybe it was cowardly of her, but she didn't feel strong enough to see the big finale, at least not yet.

* * *

That night, Katniss had a nightmare again. She'd been dreaming of coming back to the arena, as usual, but this time it didn't look like the one from her own Games, but the one from a quarter century before. In her dream, she'd been inside the 50th Hunger Games. She woke up with a scream.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That's it. I'm currently working on what will become the chapter after the next one (the rest of the recording), but we're going to get back to present next time. Until then.


	8. There are two of us now

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Did you miss me?
> 
> As always, I don't own anything that is owned my someone else ;)
> 
> Betaed by Gonsalsy

She knocked. That, itself, was a testament to how out of sorts she was.

To her surprise, he opened. It gave her some comfort to see that he seemed just as thrown off by her presence at his door, as she herself was.

"What?" he asked unceremoniously.

"I forgot my bag."

Haymitch looked at her hard. It was true. It was also an excuse and they both knew that.

"Do you mind?" Katniss asked. "It's kind of cold out here."

After a long moment, he just turned around and walked back inside his house without a word, leaving the door open for her. She let out a breath she didn't know she was holding.

Neither of them was going to apologise, but they were going to be okay, or at least as okay as they ever got.

"Well? Do you know where it is?" she asked.

"Why don't you try where you left it?"

She forced herself not to roll her eyes and followed him into the kitchen. She noticed that while it was warmer in here than outside, it was not by much. He dropped onto a wooden bench and openly stared at her while she walked around the table and picked up her bag that had indeed been laying on the exact spot she'd put it when she'd visited him the last time. She quickly scanned the room to see if the place looked any better than it had back then, but it didn't seem so. At least it didn't look worse.

She lifted her glance and returned his gaze steadily, deciding that if he was staring, it was fair for her to do the same.

"You're clean," she noted out loud. So maybe he did pay mind to what she was saying at times.

Haymitch only raised his eyebrow in response. He took a sip from a glass sitting on the table. From the lack of colour and smell in the liquid, Katniss deduced he was drinking water, which was a peculiar sight.

The next question flew out of her mouth before she had a chance to stop it:

"Are you okay?"

He made some kind of non-committal grunt that could be read as both confirmation and denial. The look on his face was unreadable.

She scrutinized him closer, this time with purpose, to asses whether his condition had worsened or improved. He looked slightly better, but that was mostly because he washed up and put on some fresh clothes. She noticed how much weight he had lost lately and his tired face betrayed that he was still suffering from lack of sleep due to his nightmares in addition to the withdrawal symptoms. It occurred to her that it might have been not only neglect that had resulted in his current state, but the fact that he genuinely didn't have any energy left to tend to himself. She needed to remember that while the root of his poor condition was psychological and certainly had much to do with his addiction, the effects of denying his body alcohol were very much physical. He was sick.

Katniss cursed inwardly when she realized that if getting out of the house seemed like too much of an effort to him these days, then going all the way to the town to buy food and then carrying it on his own back might be a real challenge to him. He was one of the wealthiest people in the district, but he was no less in danger of suffering from hunger than the poor Seam kid he used to be many years ago. Of course, she doubted that he would really let himself starve, since he was too good at survival for that, but it didn't mean he was fine.

"You need help," she decided. As stubborn and antisocial as Haymitch was, she suspected that asking for help was something he wasn't too keen on doing. She cursed again. They really should have thought of that.

Haymitch snorted.

"That wasn't a question," she said raising her voice, after interpreting his wordless reply. She felt guilty and mad at herself for not noticing the obvious for so long, which in turn made her annoyance show.

"Don't we all, sweetheart. Don't we all," he drawled sarcastically.

Suddenly, Katniss decided she'd had enough.

"You're not interested in doing anything about that?" she said, not really a question. "All right, then. I'm telling Hazelle to stop by and see what she can do about this dumpster you call your house."

Haymitch's face hardened.

"The hell you are," was his immediate answer. "Whatever you think of this house, it's _mine_ , so don't you dare go inviting people that have no business here to poke around my things."

"Your things are going to rot if you continue on like this, and you along with them."

"In case you didn't notice, I've been living here longer than you've been alive without anybody's help."

"Doesn't mean you didn't need it."

"Absolutely no. I don't need a babysitter."

"Trust me, no one would agree to baby-sit you. People don't tend to seek your company, unless it's part of their job. You made sure of that yourself. Don't worry, I won't make her sit with you, just come by every few days, keep the place from falling apart and drop you some dinner."

"I won't hire her."

"Good. Then I'll do that. I was meaning to find a way for her to accept some money for months now."

He stood up and leaned across the table toward her to stress his point.

"Katniss!" he hissed. "I said no."

She put her hands flat on her side of the table and matched his stance, her own stubborn streak making itself known.

"And I say, go fly a kite," she grinded out.

He simply stared at her, not amused. She took a deep breath.

"There is no disgrace in paying someone to do some work for you," she tried again. "Think about that. She'd be happy to do that."

"And why exactly do you think I give a damn about what makes Hazelle Hawthorne happy?" Haymitch mocked. Katniss just gave him a look.

"You can help each other," she continued. "At least agree to let her bring you some real food. She doesn't have to cook it here, just drop it off."

"So I can puke it all again once I eat it? No thanks."

"You really don't know how to be gracious about anything, do you?"

"And I can cook, thank you very much."

"You can?" she asked in surprise, for a moment forgetting even about her anger. "Then why don't you ever?"

He grimaced.

"It's just not worth the effort."

"Why do you have to be so difficult?"

"Takes one to know one, sweetheart."

"You have to take care of yourself, Haymitch," she reasoned. "Either that, or let someone else do that for you."

"Says who?"

" _I_ do! Do you need to have your ears checked?"

"You have no right to tell me how to live my life, sweetheart," he pointed out.

"I won't let you waste away!"

"You can't _let me_ do anything. In case you didn't notice, you're not my boss nor my mother."

The jab was all the more painful because now she knew what happened to his mother.

"No. I'm not," she admitted coolly, but then, wanting to give him a taste of his own medicine, she added: "I thought I was your friend."

He shot her a dirty look as if to tell her that she wasn't playing fair, but she didn't back down.

"Haymitch, from the state of your kitchen I can guess that you haven't had a hot meal in weeks, and since I haven't seen the smoke from your chimney for quite a long time, too, I'd say you're not using the fireplace, either," she said pronouncing the words slowly and clearly. It was her way to keep herself from erupting. As usual with Haymitch, she was losing her patience rather quickly. "The house is cold and a mess. And you're a wreck."

"If you're going to just stand there and judge me, I'd rather you go," he snapped.

"I'm not judging you," Katniss said frustrated.

"Don't pity me, either."

"That's not what I'm doing!"

"What is it you're doing, then?"

"I care for you!" she yelled much louder than intended.

He blinked slowly and it was only then she realized that they had both leaned forward so much during their argument that their noses were almost touching. She hastily drew back.

The silence that followed was uncomfortable. Katniss shifted, growing irritated as she felt herself flush with embarrassment. Bloody Haymitch.

"You know what? Fine," she said. Her voice seemed a little higher than normal, but the need to cover up what she just said was like an itch under her skin. It was enough to keep her talking. "Let's do it the hard way."

She grabbed some greasy, crumpled paper from the table and crushed it in her hand, then moved on to collecting a few odd used mugs and turned around. She faltered slightly when she faced the overflowing sink, but went on with her task, somehow managing to place the mugs on the top of the pile without tipping it over and threw the paper in the trash.

"What are you doing?" Haymitch asked perplexed.

Katniss continued to move around the kitchen, moving objects with unnecessary force. She looked into a pitcher which was half-way filled with some odd, muddy substance that had long gone bad, scrunched her nose and poured the contents into the sink before carefully adding the item to the pyramid.

"I won't talk to Hazelle, if you don't want," she said, "but you won't get away with that so easily. You'll have to bear with my presence instead, because I won't leave you in peace until you get a grip on yourself. I don't care how much you can't stand being around me. I'll keep coming here, every day if I have to, and, Haymitch – I won't baby you."

It was truly astounding how many broken things she found in so scarce a space and in such a short time. She kept throwing them unceremoniously into the trash.

Haymitch came around the table quickly.

"Katniss, stop!" he called. "Katniss!"

He caught her wrist when she picked up a green bowl with a chipped rim, with every intention of throwing it away as she just did with the other stuff.

"Not this," he protested. "It's still good."

"It's chipped."

"Well, I like it."

He took the bowl away from her and turned to place it back on the countertop, but he didn't take into account that his hands were unsteady: the bowl slipped out of them and hit the floor with a loud clash. It broke into pieces.

"Damn it!" Haymitch yelled and punched the countertop so hard Katniss jumped.

He turned around and away from her, and leaned over the table, resting his weight heavily on his hands. For a moment complete silence fell over the room. Katniss licked her lips and slowly took a step toward Haymitch. A shard crunched under her boots and she cringed.

"Haymitch…" she whispered. Her voice failed her.

She lifted her hand unsurely, as if to touch his arm, but hesitated and left it hanging in midair, a few inches away from him. He looked up at her and her hand dropped.

"Go home, Katniss," he said, his voice rough. He shut his eyes and rubbed his forehead before returning to his previous stance. "Just… go away. Leave." But it was the last thing he said that actually stopped her: "Don't come here. I don't want you to see this."

She stood there frozen, thinking over his words, before stubbornly taking another small step forward and standing next to him. "I'll talk to Hazelle," she said softly, but firmly, making him groan and drop his head even lower. "And I'll ask my mom if she knows of any kind of remedy that could help take the edge off your symptoms."

She was sure that her mother wouldn't be thrilled to use any of her medical supply on Haymitch's drinking problem, but frankly, she didn't care. She could always ask Prim, too. She should have thought about that from the beginning.

" _And_ if you think you can just order me away, you're sorely mistaken. Whether you like it or not, there are two of us now."

He didn't voice any reply, even to correct her on her calculations. He simply stood there, with his shoulders hunched and his eyes closed. She raised her arm again and tentatively placed it on the top of his shoulder. He didn't move.

They stood there for a spell, completely still, before he surprised her by putting his hand on top of hers. She held her breath, staring at him and listening to his breathing, but he didn't look up at her. She opened her mouth, but before she could even think of what she wanted to say, he turned his head away from her and quickly retracted his hand.

"Go home," he said again, as if he hadn't heard anything she said, and walked away quickly, without giving her a backward glance. He left the room and she heard him going upstairs, leaving her alone in the kitchen. There was no point in staying in the house, so she looked somewhat helplessly around before quietly leaving.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That was Haymitch for you. Since you know he won't accept hugs, you can pass them to me in a form of comments ;)


	9. The pin (something for me)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here is the chapter that finally sends us back to the title of this story. Writing it was more emotional for me than I expected. I hope you'll enjoy it.  
> As always, big thanks to my beta, Gonsalsy.  
> I own nothing. Well, next to, anyway.

Katniss watched the bubbles swirl in the cup as she stirred her tea. She looked up at the clock and then moved her gaze outside the window, but the door at the house across the yard remained firmly shut. It'd been ten minutes since Hazelle had entered the house, but Katniss still hadn't relaxed, waiting for the other shoe to drop. She wasn't sure when winning the battle of wills with Haymitch over improving his living conditions had become a matter of highest importance, but it had. There was also the fact that she knew she owed Haymitch for the Games and she didn't like feeling indebted to anybody – something she suspected no-one could understand about her better than (infuriatingly so) the man himself.

She forced herself to stop fiddling with her cup, but she remained rooted to the spot until the tea turned cold. It was, in fact, only when she saw Hazelle leaving about two hours later that she really relaxed – she supposed Haymitch had used half of that time to argue against the whole idea, but she might have been wrong. She was well aware that cleaning up that place would take several hours, though she was sure that even if Haymitch had allowed Hazelle to just get to work, he wouldn't have let her inside all the rooms.

Katniss fought against the urge to follow Hazelle immediately after her departure from Haymitch's house and ask how the whole thing had gone. She wanted to know if the fact that the older woman had stayed inside so long meant that Haymitch had made his peace with the arrangement, or if it was just a temporary victory.

To be honest, Katniss was more than a little tired of how much of her thoughts Haymitch seemed to consume lately, and she was eager to put the whole thing behind her. There was, however, one more thing she needed to do before that could happen, something she wasn't too eager about at all: she knew that she wouldn't be able to get Haymitch out of her head until she knew the ending to the story from two and a half decades ago. In some strange way, she felt that she couldn't just leave the recording alone once she had already fired it up – that now that she had started watching it, she had to finish.

That was how she – after long deliberation and changing her mind at least five times – ended up behind the closed door of her room, hitting play on that damned video one more time.

* * *

After Maysilee disappeared from view, Haymitch walked along the edge of the cliff, looking like he was still trying to figure something out. Katniss couldn't recall seeing any other tributes reach the end of the arena in the Games she had watched over the years and she remembered that she'd been turned around by the Gamemakers when she had wandered too far away from the center. She had a distinct feeling that it might have had something to do with what she was about to see.

She saw Haymitch kicking a pebble which fell down the cliff. For a while nothing happened. Then, after a minute, the rock shot up, swinging right back. Haymitch caught it and stared at it intensely, before picking up a bigger rock and throwing it into the abyss, only to see it fly back like the first one.

Haymitch chuckled quietly.

_The force field_ – Katniss thought, her curiosity piqued. - _Just like the one on the top of the Training Center._

At that exact moment, a scream pierced the air. Haymitch's head snapped up and turned toward the source of the sound.

_Maysilee._

She hadn't made it too far away judging from the way her voice cut the distance. At first it was just a scream of terror, then a cry for help and finally, she called Haymitch by name.

The alliance was over. _Maysilee_ had been the one to break it off. He didn't have to go back for her, Katniss thought. Nobody could have blamed him if he didn't. For all he knew, it could have been a trap.

He was running across the field at neck-breaking speed less than two seconds after he first heard her. He still didn't make it on time.

He ran back into the forest, with his knife drawn, and reached the small clearing where the screams had come from. Only then did the filmmakers show Maysilee to the public: she was fighting off the flock of candy-pink birds, of all things. She had multiple cuts from their sharp, long beaks already and she was trying to shield her head with her hands, but there were too many birds attacking at once. She fell to her knees seconds before Haymitch arrived. He saw it when one of the birds pierced her neck hitting an artery and making blood flow in great amount.

Haymitch twirled and waved his arms furiously, cursing loudly. His blade hit one of the birds and the rest of them left, either scared off, or just because they had already served their purpose. Now Katniss understood what Madge had told her about the Gamemakers deciding to take Maysilee out. Someone in the control room must have planned it that way. Either they were counting on getting an emotional scene out of Maysilee and Haymitch, or they wanted a spectacular finale and thought that she wasn't well-suited for the one on one combat they had in mind as the last touch.

Or maybe, just maybe, that year's Gamemaker had been smarter than Seneca Crane and had foreseen that risking the situation where Maysilee and Haymitch would be the last two remaining tributes might not be the best idea. Katniss had to admit that there was a slight possibility that these two wouldn't just kill each other, as planned.

They seemed to like each other. They weren't professional assassins and they weren't there voluntarily. While alliances between tributes from the same district were quite common, other than the Careers, they rarely lived long enough for it to become a problem, and the Careers were an altogether different thing.

Katniss didn't think that either Maysilee or Haymitch were the type to sacrifice themselves for the other, like Peeta had offered to do for her before she had pulled out the berries, either. Her guess was that, had Maysilee and Haymitch refused to fight, it would have come down to them waiting for something else to happen. Which meant that the Gamemakers would have had to eliminate them using the arena, but whatever they would have sent their way, they would have faced it as a team. What would that look like, though? Who would their opponent be, when there were no other tributes left?

The controlling power of the Hunger Games relied on the fact that it didn't show just the Capitol murdering a bunch of teenagers from the districts, but the tributes killing _each other_ , and that - technically - no-one forced the victors to deliver the final blow. The brilliancy of the idea was that – again, technically – the people in charge weren't the ones with blood on their hands. Showing two kids standing up together against the Capitol would be a disaster. Killing them off wouldn't be enough to fix the damage.

Katniss watched Haymitch kneel quickly beside Maysilee and press his hand against her neck in a futile attempt to stop the bleeding. Maysilee's face was white as chalk and Katniss already knew: he was too late.

" _You came,"_ Maysilee choked out.

" _You're the healer_ ," he said tensely, ignoring her words. " _Tell me what to do."_

She tried to shake her head and winced.

" _Nothing."_

" _Don't give me that shit, Donner, tell me what to do!"_ Haymitch yelled frantically looking around for something that could help him, stress evident both in his voice and jerky movements.

" _There is nothing you can do. Not here. And even if…"_ Maysilee had to take a breath to finish the sentence. " _Even if you could, I'd be too weak to survive."_

" _Shut up,"_ he all but growled.

He was busy ripping off part of his clothing so he could use it as a makeshift dressing. He had to help himself with his teeth to manage that feat with one hand.

" _I need stitches. Like, five minutes ago,"_ Maysilee said somberly. " _There is no point. You know that."_

" _Don't talk."_

" _Haymitch…"_

She put her hand on top of his on her neck. He stilled and then finally looked her in the eye.

Yes. He knew.

" _Damn you, Donner,"_ he cursed defeated.

Katniss was surprised to see tears flowing freely from Maysilee's eyes. She understood that Maysilee was no longer bothering with trying to hide anything. She didn't care about who could see her and what they would think of her. Appearances didn't matter anymore. It wouldn't change a thing how she was perceived. These last few moments belonged only to her. There was some broken beauty in that fraction of freedom.

" _Thank you,"_ Maysilee whispered. Her lips were almost as pale as her cheeks.

" _What for?"_

Something other than tears sparkled in her eyes.

" _For not killing me_ ," she said, sounding much more like the girl Katniss had come to know watching the Games.

Haymitch swallowed and licked his lips, but then he did something devilishly twisted, something Katniss had no idea where he got the strength for from: he joked.

" _I still could,"_ he sassed, raising his eyebrow, and Katniss felt an icy shiver running down her spine as the memory of the words spoken by someone else entered her mind, like a distorted echo of the conversation she was listening to.

Maysilee smiled.

" _Yeah. You could."_

Her eyelids fluttered.

" _Maysilee!"_ Haymitch called out alarmed and Katniss thought it was possibly the first time she'd heard him calling the girl by her proper name.

Maysilee's head started lolling to the side, but then her eyes snapped open sharply.

" _I need you to do something for me,"_ she said urgently, most probably aware that she couldn't count on another jolt of energy.

She tugged at her collar desperately, getting what she wanted only after a few attempts when she ripped something off and then placed it in Haymitch's free palm, closing his fist with her hand.

" _Take it home,"_ she said. " _Promise me."_

" _Maysilee, I can't promise you that. You don't know if I'll even…"_

" _Promise me! I want you to…"_ she stopped abruptly and coughed hard. " _Take it home. My sister…"_

" _They'll bring…"_

" _No! You."_ She took a shaky breath. " _Promise me you'll keep it safe. Promise me, Haymitch."_

It sounded more like an order than a plea and Katniss found herself holding her breath as the two tributes fell quiet for a moment and she stared at Haymitch waiting for his answer to Maysilee's last wish.

" _Okay. I promise,"_ he said finally.

Maysilee sighed and closed her eyes in relief. It seemed that hearing that at least gave her some peace.

" _Open your eyes, Donner,"_ Haymitch said nervously.

" _You want me to die looking at your ugly face?"_ she asked skeptically but obeyed.

And she did. Out of all the lovely crafted, beautiful things around her, she kept her gaze steadily on her fellow tribute's dirty, exhausted face.

" _Stay,"_ she whispered and coughed again. A smear of blood appeared on her lips, the flash of colour a stark contrast to her pale skin.

" _I'm right here."_

" _Stay alive, you idiot,"_ she finished her sentence when her fit passed. Haymitch's smile didn't reach his eyes. Katniss heard her own pulse thundering in her ears as she watched the pieces of the puzzle fall into place one after another. She could already guess what the last one looked like, but she held an unexplained hope that she was wrong.

" _Haymitch?"_ Maysilee breathed. Her face changed. Her eyes were wide and her voice was very soft. " _I can't feel you."_

Katniss noticed that her white-knuckled grip on Haymitch's hand slackened.

" _I'm here,"_ he simply said again. He moved his other hand that had been still resting on Maysilee's neck, so she could feel it on the side of her face.

" _I'm scared,"_ she admitted.

" _I'm here,"_ he repeated. It was almost like this was the only thing he could say.

He kept holding her hand as she died and he closed her eyes after she did. He kneeled there for a while, looking at his bloodied hands. He didn't cry, but the look on his face was one Katniss never wanted to see again.

He slowly uncurled his fingers. Katniss knew what she'd see laying on his palm even before he fully opened his fist.

The mockingjay pin.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Don't worry! It's not the last chapter.  
> I'm eager to hear your thoughts on this one, though. After all, you finally got the answer to the initial question, right?


	10. The victor (all alone)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This wasn't my fastest update, BUT the chapter is LONG!  
> I wanted to thank my Beta, Gonsalsy, for all her help. She's great.  
> The only thing I own is how I choose to play with this awesome universe that had been created by one Suzanne Collins.

_Previously:_

_He kept holding her hand as she died and he closed her eyes after she did. He kneeled there for a while, looking at his bloodied hands. He didn't cry, but the look on his face was one Katniss never wanted to see again._

_He slowly uncurled his fingers. Katniss knew what she'd see laying on his palm even before he fully opened his fist._

_The mockingjay pin._

* * *

Despite having already anticipated the outcome, Katniss felt herself getting light-headed when her guess proved to be correct. She stared at the small object in Haymitch's hand that had the power to cause a storm in her mind.

There was no question whether or not Haymitch had recognised the pin when he'd seen it on her. He had to. You simply don't forget something like that. He had likely been the one who had returned it to Maysilee's family after the Games.

What must it have been like for Haymitch to see it after so many years? A wake up call? Or just a punch in the gut?

Had it been part of the reason for the way he'd been treating her: like he'd been angry at her most of the time, yet eventually protecting her the best way he could?

Maysilee had been both Haymitch's Peeta and Rue: someone from home and an ally whom he couldn't save. Katniss knew the pain and guilt that came from arriving too late to do anything else than watch your companion die. It didn't matter if you'd known them only for a short time. The ties forged under extreme circumstances were strong.

The difference was, when Katniss had got home, she hadn't been alone. She'd failed to save Rue, but she'd had Peeta by her side. She still had Prim, her mom, and Gale to return to. She'd been able to finally rest. She had people – family and friends, and even Haymitch himself – to help her. True, he hadn't been much help once they had returned to Twelve, but he'd guided her through the final interviews at the Capitol after she'd won and he'd picked up the ball again during their victory tour, not to mention the time when he had stepped up and talked down the peacekeepers after Gale's whipping.

She remembered how happy she'd been to see Haymitch when they'd let her meet with her team for the first time after she'd got back from the arena. How good it had felt to finally relax in the presence of someone familiar and whom she'd learned she could trust.

What had Haymitch got when he'd come back from his Games? None of the things he'd hoped to get back to, that was for sure. She could only imagine that – considering his family tragedy – no one in Twelve felt like celebrating his return, maybe with the exception of the obligatory official party at the Mayor's House. People had likely avoided him for some time, before he'd turned that particular state into a norm. He'd probably done his best to deter everyone from seeking any contact with him, with the aid of his sunny personality, in some form of voluntary exile.

Katniss forced herself to focus on the younger Haymitch on the screen and watched him return to his post at the edge of the arena and simply stay there. She couldn't tell if there was some plan to that, or if he was simply too tired to come up with anything else.

The Games were thankfully finally leaning toward the end. Katniss saw one of the few remaining tributes die in a similar fashion to Maysilee from an attack of the pack of golden squirrels, like the ones Haymitch had successfully fought off in the early days of the Games. The deadly duel between two other tributes ended with the victory of the girl from One. That made the girl the last living participant of the Games beside Haymitch. She was clearly determined to win, so instead of avoiding confrontation, she tracked him down like a huntress following her prey.

The last minutes of the recording were something out of a nightmare.

The girl was tall, strong and well trained. She was also older than Haymitch, probably having volunteered at her last reaping year, like most of the Careers, which would have made her eighteen.

Haymitch had a decent view of the area around him, so he saw her coming. He didn't try to run. He was ready for her.

He had a knife. She had an axe.

At first it seemed to Katniss that this was going to be exactly the kind of fight the Capitolites were counting on: ruthless, bloody and nerve-wrecking for the viewer rooting for one of the opponents to win. It was a kill-or-be-killed confrontation and both sides were doing everything in their power to stay alive, inflicting wounds that would most likely turn out to be fatal if not treated correctly.

In short, it was utterly horrible.

Katniss had to cover her mouth to keep herself from making a sound when she saw Haymitch receive a blow into his stomach. He managed to respond with a well-aimed knife throw that would have probably killed the girl if the blade had lodged itself any deeper. She screamed as she got hit in her eye, which gave Haymitch enough time to stumble away, but he was now weaponless. Katniss grit her teeth as she realised that he had to hold his own intestines in as he staggered even closer toward the edge of the arena. The female tribute threw her axe at him with an angry cry, but Haymitch ducked at the last moment sending it flying into the abyss. He collapsed then, and shuddered. It looked like he wasn't able to stand up, and the girl just stayed where she was, holding her hand to her empty eye-socket. She had lost her weapon as well and perhaps she decided that in his current state Haymitch wasn't much of a threat and it would be wiser to wait and simply outlive him than engage in a wrestling match next to the edge of the cliff.

He was starting to convulse, but there was something that he knew and his opponent didn't: that the axe would fly back. It sprang over the ledge too quickly for the girl to react and buried itself into her skull, resulting in her instant death.

The cannon sounded, and then the trumpet was announcing Haymitch a victor.

He rolled onto his back and looked up at the sky – and conveniently point blank at one of the cameras. There was absolutely no joy on his face.

The screen cleared of any image leaving Katniss sitting in stunned silence.

She stared at the empty space where the video had played for a few seconds, before snapping out of her trance and springing back into action. She sat up straighter, grabbed the remote and pointed it at the device, trying to get it running again. She expected there to be something more on the tape – some shots from the crowning or the galas, the closing comment from Caesar, anything – but her attempts at fast-forwarding the video or restarting it turned futile, no matter how many times she hit play. There was no more footage.

This was unusual. There should be, at the very least, some recording from the final interview with the victor. The Capitol always did these, they were a part of the Game's normal routine. Katniss was sure they had conducted one with Haymitch. The question was, why would they not include it with the rest of the video? She could think of only one reason: to delete it.

_What did you say to them, Haymitch?_ \- she thought once again feeling queasy.

He'd been young, defiant and hurt. He'd been grieving, angry and reeling from everything that had happened to him, probably still in shock and looking for someone to blame; the identity of the ones responsible for the horrors he'd been forced to live through probably all too clear in his mind. He had had a sharp tongue, dangerously quick wit, and no-one to guide him.

It had been bad enough that he'd clearly outsmarted the Gamemakers by using a part of the arena for his own means and turning it into a weapon. He'd probably angered them by making them look stupid. It had been almost as bad as her own stunt with the berries. If he'd topped that by saying something politically incorrect afterwards… moreover, if he – as she suspected – had made a good point while doing that and struck a sore spot…

Suddenly, she remembered Haymitch's frantically whispered warning moments before she had entered the stage to face Caesar again.

_The one thing they can't stand is being laughed at._

His family's violent deaths. The timing. The urgency of his last second instructions to her and the glint in his eye when he had given them to her – all tense seriousness and not a hint of the good-natured humour he had shown when she had shot the arrow at the Gamemakers at her scoring.

"God, Haymitch," Katniss breathed.

She felt the dread turning her stomach. She wasn't naive. She realised both she and her family were in danger, especially since President Snow had made that painfully clear to her, but the stark reality of Haymitch's story transformed the ominous, but rather abstract, threat hanging over her head into something terrifyingly tangible. She had to work really hard to keep herself from succumbing to panic. She forced herself to think about the fact that nothing had really changed since a few minutes ago and her realisation. Maybe she wasn't quite out of the woods and the Capitol wasn't done with her yet, but she was still home, with her mother and sister a few meters away, at least for now safe and sound. She'd played along after her Games and while president Snow had let her know that he wasn't quite satisfied with her performance, it proved to be enough to spare her family. They were a target, a bargaining chip, but they hadn't been swiftly killed off like Haymitch's family. The eyes of the whole Panem were on them and that gave them some protection.

Katniss calmed down gradually and thought about the man who was now her neighbour. She had an unpleasant feeling that she should tell him that she'd watched his Games. With the upcoming Quarter Quell and the fact that she was one of the two freshly appointed mentors for the new district Twelve tributes, it wasn't an as surprising or inexcusable thing to do as it might have been otherwise, but she was in no way looking forward to confessing the deed to Haymitch. Somehow, she very much doubted that he would have wanted her to see the tape.

She realised that the next Hunger Games were going to be hard on Haymitch, perhaps almost as much as they were going to be hard on Peeta and herself. For years now, Haymitch had been left on the margins of the Capitol's spotlights, able to somewhat hide behind the tributes and the mentors from the more successful districts. This year, though, they were going to drag his story out, not only because he'd been the last Quarter Quell victor, but also because he was now the first mentor in history who had managed to bring home two victors in one year. He was going to get a lot of attention from the media and he was going to absolutely hate it. They might even make him answer questions about his own Games or show some chosen fragments from the reruns on TV.

She never cared much for how Haymitch felt during various functions they had to attend as the District Twelve team, be it right after the Games or at the Victory Tour – it didn't seem to matter that much in grand scheme of things. There had been much more important things to focus on and he hadn't exactly made it easy to feel for him with his attitude – but now that she thought of that, he probably preferred it that way. He didn't like to be fussed about, clearly despising the idea of anyone feeling sorry for him, and therefore much preferring the comfort of the distance easily created by his rudeness and (admittedly unbecoming after days-long periods of drinking and neglect) appearance. There was something more to it, though. Katniss couldn't help but think that a lot about Haymitch – the disgusting state he kept himself in most of the time, the miserable living conditions he subjected himself to despite clearly having the means to rectify the problem, his habit of pushing people away – was, to some degree, just an odd form of self-inflicted punishment, that perhaps started as a choice, but became a normal state of things at some point.

All in all, though, he was one of the good ones – she realised. Terribly fractured, but still retaining his own mind, despite his thorough attempts to drown it in alcohol. There was one thing she had to give Haymitch – he was nobody's puppet.

Still, it bothered her: the raging gap between the young boy she'd seen on the recording, brave and fierce, if a bit jaded, and the disillusioned, defeated man next door. There was so much missing – the unyielding, dry sense of humour, the will to live, the spark – she'd seen it, and could recognise the traces of it now that she knew what to look for, but it was almost gone.

Maybe if they'd left him something to fight for – someone to care for – things would have been different and he wouldn't have let himself fall so low. But of course, that was the whole point of breaking him.

Naturally, she knew what filled the gap, what would make him change so much. The loss of everyone he had loved and the lonely, hopeless years that had followed, were enough of a reason to bring down anyone, even someone as strong as a Hunger Games victor.

Nevertheless, Katniss found herself wishing she knew more about the years in between. An idea – an awful one – wormed its way from the back of her head, but she quickly banished it where it came from.

* * *

 

Turned out, neither the 50th Hunger Games, nor Haymitch were as easily erasable from her mind as she would have imagined. They were supposed to evaporate from her thoughts as soon as she was done watching the recording from Madge, but unfortunately, its contents made a more lasting impression on Katniss than she would have wished. The images she saw and the implications of them were not something she could just forget overnight, more so since peaceful sleep continued to elude her. And so the next day found Katniss still mulling over the second Quarter Quell events and what everything she'd learned meant for her.

Later in town, when Ripper caught her eye, she was surprised by her own feelings. Katniss knew the signal meant that Ripper was back in business and had something for her – the black market would always find a way. Since Ripper would no longer risk selling in front of the peacekeepers, though, the only way she could move her product was to give her regular (and trusted) clients heads-up and for them to come to her and pick up the package, one person at a time. Apparently, as Haymitch's protégée, Katniss fitted the category.

_There would be no withdrawal-medicine for Haymitch, then –_ Katniss thought with a curious pang of disappointment – but she bought two bottles of white liquor without batting an eyelash ( _he needed it_ ).

Up to that moment, she wasn't even aware she cared one way or another.

The weight of the bottles in her bag was an unpleasant reminder of the awaiting task of visiting Haymitch – something she felt leery about not only because of her sudden reluctance to provide him with his poison of choice, but because of the nagging voice in her head whispering that sooner or later, she'd have to come clean. She was due to check on him, anyway, since she had yet to find out how the arrangement with Hazelle was working out, but she couldn't deny her reluctance to meet him face to face for the first time since finishing the video.

Perhaps it was that desire to stall that made the idea return to the front of Katniss' mind and pushed her toward the city archives instead of back to the Victors Village. After all, if she was going to bear the weight of Haymitch's outrage over poking around the past, she might as well take a better look. She was sure he was going to make her pay for watching and expected the price to be steep, so why stop at a peek?

Ten minutes later her bag was heavier by several tapes now tucked snugly next to Ripper's bottles. Her stride was quick and angry, and she was silently seething from the well-meaning comment of the man who had handed her the recordings and expressed his hope that this year the kids from their district would finally stand a decent chance in the Games with her and Peeta taking over training the tributes. Thankfully, he had had the good sense to stop talking after she had glared at him.

After she got home, she went straight to her room and fired up the recorder. She picked the tape from the year after the second Quarter Quell. She didn't intend to watch the Games itself, just the Reapings. She wasn't sure what she hoped to see there, but she wanted to check it out anyway.

She skipped the part from the other districts, fast-forwarding directly to the scene from Twelve.

She paused the recording on the image of the stage in front of the Hall of Justice building.

There he was, wearing all black and looking considerably thinner than the year before, despite obviously not having to be concerned with the spectre of hunger any more. There were two others on the stage – the mayor and the escort whom Katniss recognised from the previous recording, but all she could see was the _lack_ of people around Haymitch. There was no fellow victor or older mentor next to him. For all the crowd gathered on the square, he was all alone.

There was, however, something else about him that struck her even more: while he was visibly pale and the expression on his face was grim, his spine was straight and there was an edge in his eyes she didn't expect – they were alight with a pained, but also slightly angry gleam, instead of being dull like she'd imagined.

He was split open, like a bleeding wound, but he wasn't broken. Not yet.

_When?_ Katniss thought astounded. _If not then, then when? When had it happened?_

She let the video play and watched the beginning of yet another tragic story unfold itself before her eyes. She saw a weary look cross Haymitch's face when a gentle-looking girl stepped out of the section of fourteen-years-olds. Haymitch only gave her a solemn nod, at contrast with the girl's young appearance, yet oddly appropriate, when she took her place on the stage. Her shoulders were squared, but her whole body was shivering. She chose to stand close to Haymitch.

Katniss realised that for all the hopelessness of the girl, he must have evoked the most trust out of the bunch, standing next to the two adults – one of them a strict authority figure and the other a stranger from the Capitol. Back then, Haymitch had still been, first and foremost, a boy from the Seam. Somehow, Katniss had no doubt that he had given everything he had into helping his tributes that year, though he probably hadn't had the slightest clue what he'd been doing. She doubted it had even mattered in the end. Everyone, including the girl herself, had known she stood no chance.

It was what happened next, though, when a male tribute was called that really grabbed Katniss' attention.

Haymitch's eyes widened before the boy even stepped out of his row, the moment his name was read. One of the seventeen-years-olds, Haymitch's peer – Katniss noticed. _They knew each other._ _ **Really**_ _knew each other_ – she realised stunned.

The boy managed to overcome his shock and walked toward the stage, making a beeline for Haymitch. Unlike with the girl, there had been a spark of hope mixed with desperation in his eyes, when he shot his mentor a look. Katniss couldn't be sure, but she thought there was some kind of a pat, or maybe a curt arm-squeeze exchanged between the two.

_Of course_ they knew each other. They had probably been classmates.

She wasn't sure why she was so surprised. The thought had never occurred to her – though it should have – that the new mentors stood a very good chance of encountering their friends and colleagues as their charge for the first few years.

She turned off the video and took off the headphones.

For the first time, it came to her mind that the problem she would be facing in a few brief months might be even bigger than she had thought. Her thoughts flickered back to the conversation she had recently had with President Snow in this very same house and the subtle, but very clear threats that had been made if she didn't fulfill her role to his wishes. Her mind kept playing the memory of the ball in the Capitol, last night of her Victory Tour, and the slight shake of the white-bearded man's head.

Wouldn't that be just a perfect opportunity? To punish her by sending her loved ones into the arena and make her watch, while she failed to save them? Wouldn't that be perfectly in line with the Capitol style of sorting things out? How many victor's children had she seen being reaped over the years?

Whose name would she have to hear read in Effie's cheery voice this year? Madge's? Gale was too old, but what about Rory? Who else did she have to worry about?

She felt her heart stop when she heard the voice from downstairs:

"Katniss, dinner's ready!" Prim called.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here is some important news for you: I'm going to create a seperate series for this story and change the tag soon (the working title is "stranger things happened"), so if you're relying on notifications, you might want to check for the update even if you don't get any info from ao3.  
> Secondly, this story is almost over already. There will be at least one more chapter (or, less likely, two shorter ones - I'm not sure, since I haven't written it yet).  
> I'm still trying to decide what to write next. I know I have long promised to try and write something shippy for these two - please let me know if that's something you'd be interested in reading (I'm considering writing a sequel - hence the new series).  
> Also, as always, I'm eager to hear your thoughts on the chapter.


	11. A good thing

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi! It's a busy time for me, but here is another chapter for you. I deciced there will be one more (last), short chapter after this. Enjoy!  
> Disclaimer: Life is brutal. We don't own them. These are the facts.  
> ...and of course, let's not forget, that this chapter is betaed by lovely Gonsalsy :)

Stepping into Haymitch's house after Hazelle had gotten her hands on it was like stumbling into alternative reality. A visibly improved one. Despite her thoughts running a mile a minute, Katniss took a second to pause and take in her changed surroundings, when a very unusual mixture of scents hit her nostrils: lemony freshness and a faint trace of something edible and shockingly appetising to boot. She looked around. It wasn't _what_ she saw that was really that impressive – it was _the lack_ of the things she'd come to expect at Haymitch's place: the plethora of items one had to stumble across to get into the room, the layer upon layer of greasy dust covering most flat surfaces in varying amount, the occasional buzz from the flies that had made the kitchen their permanent home.

"Let me guess," Haymitch's voice cut through her amazement. "You're here to inspect."

She turned her head to find him leaning against the doorway leading toward the living-room. She couldn't help but notice that he looked decidedly better than the last time she'd seen him. Be it the result of the change in his living conditions, or that he had just gotten through the crisis in the detoxing process, there was no denying that he looked healthier. For a moment, she felt guilty when she thought of what she was about to do, knowing all the progress he might have made would be undone in a second when she gave the bottle to him, but she was too preoccupied with her other, even more distressing thoughts to examine that particular dilemma too close.

Something of her ill-feeling must have reflected on her face, because Haymitch tilted his head, watching her closely.

"Or not," he said thoughtfully, reminding her that it hadn't been the physical strength or ruthlessness, but his ability to connect the dots before everyone else that had made him the Hunger Games victor. Sober Haymitch could be dangerously perceptive. "What's going on?"

"I'm here to talk," she announced calmly.

She half-expected him to snarl " _then talk"_ , but he simply considered her for a moment before silently inviting her into the room behind him with a pointed jerk of his chin. Katniss followed him without a word and tensely sat on the edge of the sofa while Haymitch dropped onto the armchair and stretched out his legs.

"What did you want to talk about?" he asked.

So far, his mood wasn't too bad, but she braced herself for the full impact of his upcoming ire. There was no way around it: if she wanted to talk to him, she needed to start with telling the truth.

 _Like a band-aid_ – she thought.

"I watched your Games," she said bluntly. It took her a conscious effort not to look away.

Every muscle in Haymitch's body stilled and tensed. His face turned into stone.

"And why would you do that?" he asked slowly, his voice deceptively calm.

"It was something I needed to do. As a mentor," she gave him a calculated answer, trying and failing to keep the defensive tone out of her voice. Even she could hear how lame her lie sounded.

"Really? Tell me, then: did you watch them with Peeta?"

He paused, watching her like a hawk, and when her answer didn't come (she refused to look down in shame), he shook his head and said, "See, I didn't think so."

She could sense his anger brewing under the surface and about to spill over and she knew that she needed to act before he could get out another word.

She quickly reached into her bag when she saw him open his mouth, no doubt to say something nasty.

"You know..." the words died abruptly on Haymitch's tongue when the light caught the glass surface and his eyes zeroed on her hand curled around the bottleneck peeking out of her bag. He looked up at her lifting his eyebrows as if asking if she was serious and let out a soft huff. "Classy, sweetheart," he commented shaking his head.

"I come in peace," she said taking the bottle fully out of the bag. She put it on the table with a clang.

Haymitch glared at her.

"That's way below the belt and you know it," he noted, though it was quite obvious that he was losing this battle as he didn't waste any time before uncapping the bottle. Katniss watched his hands suddenly become shaky and she felt another pang of guilt. She was in no way under the illusion that not bringing the alcohol to this house would have kept Haymitch for long from getting his hands on booze once he discovered it was available again, but this was something different. She was using his addiction against him and she knew it was a low blow.

"I can take it away," was her acerbic reply, to which she was surprised to see the corner of Haymitch's mouth curl up.

"You can try," he said raising the bottle in a mock-salute before taking a long sip. He closed his eyes and dropped his head back once the first drop hit his tongue. He sighed and licked his lips, the tension in his shoulders gone.

"Still mad at me?" Katniss asked, aiming for sarcasm, but genuinely curious about the answer.

"That depends," he said cryptically, without opening his eyes.

"On what?"

"Is there more?"

She wordlessly placed another bottle on the table.

"Smart girl."

Katniss eyed him suspiciously while he took another sip from the bottle. His face looked unexpectedly relaxed. Either he was saving the fit for after he was finished with his drink, or the alcohol really worked wonders on cheering him up – though if that had been true, his usual demeanour should have been much sunnier, considering the amount of booze he consumed on a daily basis.

"Don't drink everything at once. That's all I have."

He smiled wryly.

"No offence, sweetheart, but you have nothing on me on the topic. I know exactly how much I can drink."

"Right," she whispered.

She watched him not quite knowing if she was forgiven.

"It's not really helping you to get better, you know?" she couldn't hold back her remark.

"Nope," he smirked,"but it helps me to _feel_ better."

She shook her head frustratedly.

"I wish you didn't have to do this."

"Sweetheart, there are so many things _I wish,_ I wouldn't even know where to start."

"I'm serious, Haymitch. This stuff is going to kill you one day."

He hummed.

"Maybe. But not today. Besides – I'm harder to kill than most people give me credit for." He sneaked a glance at her before closing his eyes again. "And _please_ don't you go hypocritical on me, 'cause that's something I can't stand."

She only huffed in response and decided to let him be for a moment. He had a point – about her complaints being hypocritical, not about the reasons for why it was okay for him to drink – and it wasn't really that she blamed him for the way he was handling his problems, knowing what she knew about his reasons, but that didn't mean she approved either.

She also thought it might be better to wait on steering the conversation back toward the Games until he was slightly more buzzed.

They sat in surprisingly companionable silence for a few minutes, until Haymitch broke it: "So. What do you want?" His eyes opened a crack again and met hers. "Oh, come on, sweetheart," he added seeing her expression. "You didn't plot all of this just to do right by me and confess your dirty little secret. There is something else bothering you. What is it?"

 _Still sober,_ she thought, not entirely friendly.

"You're not going to question me about watching it?" she stalled.

"I'm not a masochist. _You're_ the one watching Hunger Games reruns in your free time, remember?"

"It wasn't like that," she protested immediately, perhaps subconsciously seeking opportunity to defend herself.

"Do tell?"

Katniss shifted uncomfortably, but didn't rise to the bait.

"Well," he sighed. "At least now I won't have to tell you about that."

She shot him another suspicious look – when did Haymitch become one to look for a silver lining? – which he completely ignored, but then she thought that maybe he appreciated her presence in the last few days more than he'd let on.

"There was no interview," she said after a few minutes, purposely avoiding looking at him.

"What?"

"On the tape. There was no interview with you. Not the one after you won. I want to know why."

Haymitch abruptly stood up and walked toward the window, taking the bottle with him.

"That is of no concern to you," he said sharply, but she could see that she'd rattled him.

"Why, Haymitch?"

" _I said_ , it doesn't matter."

"I need to know these things if I am to..."

"No! You don't!" he yelled. "You already got through these interviews and you did well, end of story!"

"I know what happened to your family," she cut in. That shut him up for a few seconds. Instead of replying, he started pacing agitatedly.

"Who told you?" he asked.

"My mom."

He stopped and stared at her incredulously.

"Your mother? Told _you_ about _my_ family?"

Katniss only nodded.

"Has she lost her mind?" he asked rudely. "Why would _she_ talk to _you_ about that?"

"Because I asked."

He ran a hand through his hair and took a few more big gulps from his bottle.

"Shouldn't you slow down a little?" Katniss asked.

"Shouldn't you mind your own business?!"

She shrunk under his voice and crawled deeper into her seat. He was cradling the bottle to his stomach, with a white-knuckled grip on the glass, as if it was his security blanket. The comparison probably wasn't too far off considering that the alcohol had been his only source of comfort for years.

"I just..."

"Why are you here?" he asked staring at her coldly. His narrowed eyes flashed dangerously. There was that flare of anger she'd expected.

"Excuse me?" she managed to get out.

"You heard me: why are you here? What are you doing, Katniss? Why are you asking me all these questions? Or do you just enjoy torturing me?"

"How can you say that?" she whispered.

"You already know the answer: I made a mistake and I paid for it. You want me to tell you... what, exactly? How I screwed up? How I was so full of myself that I thought I had it all figured out? You want me to tell you how I had myself convinced that if I said the right thing on the live feed they wouldn't be able to kill me without proving my words? How I believed that I couldn't be what they wanted me to be, and that I wouldn't let them force me to play along? That I thought I didn't care what they would do to me after living through the Games? How I refused to be scared? How I thought myself so clever and yet never considered that they might let me live and go after my family instead – something the public would never know about, since I would show up the next year as a mentor as planned? That I would serve as a living example for the other victors?"

She stared at him horrified as something finally clicked for her.

"Haymitch...," she breathed stunned. " _It wasn't your fault._ "

He had to know that, didn't he?

"Wasn't it?"

She flinched when he took a swig and hurled his precious bottle across the room. It crashed into the opposite wall and broke with a clash. Katniss sat frozen watching Haymitch who was breathing heavily and shivering with the force of the unleashed emotions. She stilled even more when, after getting himself somewhat under control, he threw himself onto the couch next to her, making the springs groan.

"I'm not nearly as drunk as I need to be," he mumbled shooting a mournful glance at the liquor-splattered wall and proceeded with opening the remaining bottle. He sat hunched forward, with his head hanging low and rubbed his face with his hands.

Katniss steeled herself before trying to talk to him again. For a moment, she thought about just leaving him alone, but then she realised that _that_ would have done him no favour, even if it was also something he wished her to do. Besides, even though so far their talk hadn't gone well, there were things she still desperately needed to address.

"I remember what you told me after the Games, about me having to be careful. Thank you for that," she started cautiously. He didn't look up at her. "I know that you wouldn't want for what happened to your family to be repeated," she continued. She was pretty sure she could count on that. "I also know that Snow is not happy with me. You might think of me as a brat, but I'm not completely dense. I realise that everyone I care about is in danger. Which is why I need you, Haymitch. I need you to help me toe the line."

She was pleading with him. She didn't use the word, but that was what it came down to.

"You've already crossed it," was his hoarse reply.

"Maybe so, but if that's the truth, then I need you to help me figure out what to do, so that I'll be the only one to pay for that. I need you to stop me if you see that I'm about to step too far. I can't do this on my own, Haymitch."

He snorted, which quite frankly made her feel a bit hurt.

"How did they manage to make you shut up afterwards, all these years?" she wondered out loud, partly in response to his earlier reaction. It seemed that he had had nothing to lose, and with his penchant for spilling ugly truths...

"I don't make the same mistake twice," he explained reluctantly. "When I came back to the Capitol, I had two new tributes with me, for whom I held responsibility. I couldn't afford another wrong move. So I kept quiet, did my job, and smiled at every sponsor I wanted to spit at."

There was one more question she had to ask him. For some reason, she trusted his judgement on the matter and it would bring her great relief if he deemed her worries unwarranted. She had a feeling they wouldn't be revisiting this conversation any time soon, so it was now or never.

"You asked me why I was here," she said toying with the end of her braid. "Earlier today, I had this thought..." she cleared her throat. "Do you think that... If Snow wanted to punish me... You know how much Prim means to me and... Do you think it's possible..."

"Just ask what you want to ask already," Haymitch snapped at her.

"I was just wondering... do you think they can reap her again?" she blurted.

Haymitch's gaze snapped up to her face in alert before becoming understanding and finally softening.

"No," he said gently, in complete contrast to his earlier annoyance. "No, sweetheart, they won't do that."

"But they could," she insisted, unable to stop herself from spilling all of her concern to him once she started. "I mean, her name will be back in that bowl, won't it? And there is no rule that says that it can't be drawn twice if she didn't go to the arena the first time – and this time I can't volunteer for her, because victors are excluded from the Reapings and _that's_ a well-known rule..."

"Sweetheart," Haymitch called again to interrupt her. "I'm not saying they _can't_ do that, I'm saying they _won't,_ " he elaborated.

"But what if..."

"If they do, they'll be idiots of epic proportions," he said firmly. She stopped talking choosing to hang on his every word instead. She desperately needed him to be right. "It'd be a political suicide. Don't get me wrong, Snow is definitely up to something and I'm afraid he's not done with you yet, but he won't do _that._ Sending Prim to the arena would be a very bad move, one that could even prove disastrous to him. It's way too public and too suspicious. No-one would believe it a coincidence, not even in the Capitol. It would be like declaring a war against you, and _that_ would mean acknowledging that he's your enemy – something he doesn't want to do right now. You're well-liked both in the Districts _and_ in the Capitol, but Prim? People love your sister and they would turn on him. What he needs right now is to quench the rebellion before it starts, not to add fuel to the fire."

Katniss bit her lip and let her gaze flicker down for a moment before looking at Haymitch through her lashes.

"Are you sure?" she asked, hating how small her voice sounded.

"Yes."

"I don't think I could take it, Haymitch," she confessed. "I'd rather they'd just killed me. I couldn't watch her going through that and then..."

"I know. I know." He shifted angling his body toward hers. "Look at me, Katniss. You know I would have told you if I thought it was a possibility, right?"

She simply nodded, not trusting her voice.

"I'm telling you, this makes no sense. You don't have to worry about that."

She inhaled deeply. It was as good as a promise, and she knew Haymitch well enough to realise that he didn't like making promises, especially about something like that.

She wondered briefly if she was out of her mind – because there she was, longing for a _cuddle_ from this drunken, much older, not to mention chronically bad-tempered man – but try as she might, she could no longer find it in herself to consider Haymitch disgusting.

And then, when she thought of that, it didn't seem so strange at all to hug him, and not just for her own sake. She wondered if anyone had ever offered to comfort him after what had happened. Probably not, and just as likely he wouldn't have accepted it, even if they tried.

"I'm sorry," she said suddenly, sincerely.

"What?"

"I thought I understood, but I didn't."

He regarded her carefully.

"And now you do?"

"I'm starting to."

He held her gaze for a beat before looking away.

"I wish you didn't have to understand," he said.

It was so rare for him to express any kind of care that she felt genuinely touched.

In that moment, she decided she'd been wrong before, about them being friends. She wasn't sure what they were, but the nature of the bond was different: born out of spilled blood and common fate, the ties forged by the Hunger Games were not something you chose, but rather something that you simply had to acknowledge, both inevitable and unbreakable. She realised with a startling clarity that as long as Haymitch lived, she would never be able to cut him out of her life. He would forever be a part of it. The thought was far less daunting than one could have expected.

"Haymitch?"

He hummed in response.

"I meant what I said before. I need you to help me. You know how all of this works, you've known these people longer, you see things before I do. I need you to be there during the next Games, and not just physically present, but your mind as well, focused and on alert, not passed out somewhere. Can you do that? I promise I'll stop talking about this, but I need you to tell me."

He only shook his head.

"You found yourself a piss-poor advisor, sweetheart," she heard him say softly.

"You're the only one I got," she replied, "and I wouldn't trust anyone else, anyway."

"I got everyone I loved killed," he argued matter-of-factly, and she wondered how he could even utter such awful words so calmly.

She swallowed thickly. When she spoke again, her voice was low and raspy:

"Well, then. It's a good thing that you don't make the same mistake twice."


	12. The end (worth it)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know, I know, it's been too long... My only excuse is that the RL has been busy lately. BUT, as you can see, I finished the story :)  
> Thank you all for joining me in this adventure - especially those of you, who took your time to review. It's been a pleasure talking to you :)
> 
> I'd also like to once more thank Gonsalsy, who was my Beta for this story, for helping me to improve it and make is more enjoyable for all of you to read.
> 
> Of course, I still don't own Hunger Games (I promise to let you know if that ever changes ;) )
> 
> ...and did I say that this chapter would be shorter? Hah! You must not believe me when I try to predic things like that...

_Previously:_

_He only shook his head._

_"You found yourself a piss-poor advisor, sweetheart," she heard him say softly._

_"You're the only one I got," she replied, "and I wouldn't trust anyone else, anyway."_

_"I got everyone I loved killed," he argued matter-of-factly, and she wondered how he could even utter such awful words so calmly._

_She swallowed thickly. When she spoke again, her voice was low and raspy:_

_"Well, then. It's a good thing that you don't make the same mistake twice."_

* * *

Haymitch raised his head and hesitantly lifted his gaze. When their eyes met, he gave her a look so sad and haunted that any further words Katniss might have wanted to say got caught in her throat. There was a flicker of something, some kind of unintended tenderness that made her jittery, and she looked away like a coward, though she'd been the one to bring it up.

They sat in silence for a long while, the topic thankfully abandoned by unspoken agreement. She should have probably left, but she found that she didn't want to.

"I don't want this for you."

Katniss startled in surprise hearing Haymitch's voice.

"What?" she asked almost inaudibly. "You don't want what?"

He made a vague gesture without even looking at her.

"Any of this."

"Haymitch?"

Despite his earlier complaint about not being drunk enough, she could tell that the fast-consumed alcohol was already going to his head, as his words were becoming slurred. She wasn't sure how much he had really drunk, since he had smashed the first bottle before he could finish downing its contents.

Haymitch shifted in his seat so he could see her better and stared at her so hard that she was starting to get uncomfortable. He tilted his head to the side and while there didn't seem to be any hostility in his face this time, she found that there was something unsettling about the way his half-lidded eyes were gleaming.

"Did I ever tell you, that there was a moment, during your Games, when I thought that maybe it would be best if I stopped helping you?" he said, still watching her thoughtfully. "That, knowing what might happen afterwards... That it would be better for everyone, you included? Less cruel?"

Katniss licked her suddenly dry lips.

"No, I'm pretty sure you never told me that," she said.

She watched fascinated as that gentle thing in his eyes sparkled to life only to turn into something dark, so fast that had she blinked, she might have missed it. It kept twisting back and forth and she couldn't decide if the way he was looking at her was ominous or caring.

"The girl on fire," Haymitch sneered. "Don't you see? The brighter you burned, the more _scared_ for you I got, because what if you did win, huh? What happens next? Never had to worry about that part before. But it just seemed so obvious that they would want to trample you down. Do you have any idea... All the things they could possibly do... You don't know the half of it, do you? But _I do._ I did. And it made me sick."

There was not much you could say to a confession like that.

"Why didn't you let me die in the arena, then?"

"Because I'm selfish."

She hesitated before asking another question:

"Care to elaborate?"

He stared at her some more making her twitchy.

"The other day, I told you that any tributes you'd get this year would die," he said after a pause, seemingly out of the blue.

"You're changing the subject," she cut in, displeased.

"What I said..." he continued choosing his words slowly, "was not what you wanted to hear at the moment, but it was true."

"How gracious of you to remind me," she muttered.

"There is, however, something I didn't tell you," he said ignoring her grumbling. "Something you should know."

He leaned forward. Perhaps it was the alcohol that made him chatty and that took away some of the habitual harshness, but when he looked at her this time, the hard edge in his eyes was gone and she felt the adrenaline spike again. This was uncharted territory. She didn't know this open Haymitch and she had no idea what to expect from him.

"It's probably going to take a long time," he said. "Years. Decades, even. You're going to lose each one of them, every time. Year after year, they'll die, one by one, despite your best efforts."

"Shut up," she whispered.

"You'll be helpless to watch them run, hide and kill, you'll hear them cry and scream and beg for your help. And you'll keep coming home alone." His eyes were warm and shining with something akin to affection, so much in contradiction to his words, that she wasn't sure if she wasn't seeing things. "But, Katniss..." he raised his hand as if he wanted to touch her cheek, but stopped millimetres away from her skin. She kept completely still. "You'll have to keep trying. If you see a fraction of chance, you'll have to take it, even knowing the risk. Because if you get it right, even once – even after all the failure and pain – it'd be worth it."

She was speechless, once again, because he wasn't talking abstractly.

There it was, that thing Prim had been talking about and Katniss was finally seeing.

_You are worth it._

"You're drunk," she blurted, breaking the spell.

Haymitch unexpectedly barked with laughter. She blinked.

"Sure I am," he said drawing back.

His retort made her want to take her words back, but it was too late for that.

"I should go," she said softly after the silence stretched for too long. "My mom will be wondering where I am."

She made no move to leave. She itched to get away from the heavy atmosphere, but at the same time felt like there was something she should tell him before she walked out of his door.

They sat in silence for a spell again, before she sighed and started to get up.

"Katniss," Haymitch said and startled her by quickly putting his hand on her wrist to stop her. His skin was dry and radiating heat, like a stone warmed up by midday sun. She looked at him questioningly. "They won't reap her," he said simply.

She gave into an impulse she didn't know she possessed: she reached with her hand toward his head, kept it hovering for a split second, just like he had done, before brushing his hair back from his eyes in what might have been the most intimate gesture they had ever shared. She let her fingers linger, momentarily surprised by the softness of his hair – probably just because nothing about Haymitch seemed soft – and then suddenly felt the urge to move her hand to the base of his neck and to tug him closer.

"What...?" he asked.

"A hug, Haymitch," she explained exasperated. "You do grasp the idea, don't you?"

She saw him bristle, battling with himself, his control slipping long enough to let her catch a glimpse of longing on his face. When he moved, it was hesitant, and she wasn't sure until the last moment if he would back away – she hadn't forgotten the way he'd left her standing in his kitchen the last time she'd visited him. Deep down, he must have been starved for human contact, but some habits were hard to break.

It was a testament of how much he must have really needed this, that in the end he gave in without as much as a sarcastic comment.

Katniss watched out of the corner of her eye as Haymitch's hand slowly uncurled from around the bottle and moved to reach for her instead.

He managed to catch her off guard when he sagged against her and she stiffened for a second or two when she felt him resting his head on her shoulder. She looked down at him to find that his eyes were closed. He sighed and adjusted his head a little, almost as if he was nestling, and she had to swallow the emotion clogging her throat when she realised that that was it – that was all he needed, nothing more, nothing less – that he didn't want anything else from her.

So she allowed herself to relax: she buried her nose in his hair to block the smell of liquor in his breath with the scent of shampoo and waited until her heartbeat evened out. She felt Haymitch's breathing deepening as well, his exhales tickling her skin. The house was so quiet that she could hear the ticking of the clock from the other room, and she let the peacefulness of the moment wash over her. Quite frankly, she'd expected this to be uncomfortable, but the feeling never came, which was why she didn't protest when the hug lasted longer than she'd planned. She was reluctant to break the embrace knowing that as soon as she did, it was bound to get awkward. She sighed and ran her fingers through Haymitch's hair, just because she could. She knew that she would probably never get another opportunity to do that.

"Haymitch?" she whispered, but was met with no reply, not even a non-verbal one.

Katniss lifted her head and drew back a little so she could get a good look at Haymitch. His eyes were still closed and his face was calmer than she could recall seeing it in a long time. His head felt heavy on her shoulder. It took her a moment before she realised why he hadn't responded: he was asleep.

* * *

"Where were you? It's late."

Katniss closed the door before turning to face her mother.

"Haymitch's," she said simply.

She didn't feel like talking. She'd left Haymitch in his living-room after carefully replacing her shoulder with a pillow and lowering him onto the couch. He didn't wake the whole time. She knew it had been the alcohol and sleep deprivation that had made him flake out on her, rather than the fact that she'd been holding him, but it still showed a level of trust that he'd let himself fall asleep like that.

"What took you so long? I thought you said that you just wanted to check on him?"

She shrugged.

"We talked some."

She was thinking that she should have covered him with a blanket.

"How is he?" her mother surprised her with a question.

Katniss looked at her mom and finally forced herself to focus on the conversation.

"You know Haymitch," she said evasively. "He's drinking again."

She instantly felt bad for painting him in bad light, when she'd been the one to supply him with the booze.

Her mother just sighed and shook her head.

"I know you feel grateful to him, but you really don't have to do this, honey," she said as they walked deeper into the house.

Katniss furrowed her brows.

"What do you mean?"

"You don't have to sit with him, especially when he's drunk. He made his bed."

"What?" Katniss asked sharply stopping.

"I'm just saying, he's a grown man and he's making his own choices. You can't take it upon yourself to try and save him. Some people just don't want others to help them."

"That's not... I don't think that's fair," Katniss argued resuming her walking. She almost said it wasn't true, but it probably was, at least on some level. It wasn't that simple, either, though. "He's not a bad person, mom."

"I'm not saying he is," her mother soothed. "It's just -"

"He really helped me."

"I know, Katniss. Believe me, I was grateful to him myself when I watched you on that screen catching the parachute after you got burned. You don't need to feel like you owe him, though. He _was_ doing his job and..."

"It was more than that," Katniss cut her off flatly, but then she felt herself softening. It wasn't her mom's fault – she assumed, like everybody else, that Haymitch's credit lay solely in talking to the sponsors. They didn't know about all the scheming and careful advice that went on behind the scenes. The only one beside Katniss who knew was Peeta, and she suspected that even he wasn't fully aware of all the unvoiced clues Haymitch had been able to subtly give her right under the Gamemakers noses to steer her toward the right direction while she'd been in the arena. "You don't understand," she said, this time gently. "You can't."

She surprised her mother by kissing her cheek and hurried upstairs leaving the confused woman standing alone.

Once Katniss reached her room, she went straight for the recorder. She had business to finish, one that she needed to put behind her once and for all.

She started with the video she had tried to watch earlier that day, the one from the 51th Hunger Games. This time she intended to go through with it.

She skipped the interviews entirely, fast-forwarding that whole part and played the recording from the moment the gong went off. Perhaps to give the audience something new, in contrast to the Quarter Quell, that year's arena had been a grey, almost deserted place filled with piles of rocks and dangerous cliffs.

Katniss had eyes only for the Twelve tributes. The girl wasn't doing too well. She managed to get away from the Cornucopia and split away from the other tributes. She was alone for the time being, which was probably for the best, but she didn't get anything of use while she was escaping the carnage, so she had no supplies. It was also clear that she didn't have any experience in getting food other than picking berries. Haymitch tried to send her a wire and some pre-crafted wooden parts, since it seemed that she would have had trouble with building a snare otherwise, but even though she managed to put it together after a few tries, she didn't have much luck in catching any game. She just didn't know anything about where she was supposed to set the trap. None of that mattered in the end, because she didn't live long enough to starve to death – on the third day some other tributes found her and slit her throat. Katniss would have liked to be able to say that at least she didn't suffer, seeing that she died quickly, but despite how short the girl's agony had been, Katniss seriously doubted that choking to death on your own blood didn't hurt.

The boy, Haymitch's friend, had more survival skills. He was older and stood much better chance in a fight. He wasn't much of a hunter either, but between what he had found in a care-package he had carried away from the Cornucopia and some inborn resourcefulness, he was managing. He had another problem, though. He got hurt in one of the scuffles – a leg wound that didn't look too bad at first, but wasn't healing properly and soon was clearly infected. Remembering the miracle-working burn ointment she had received during her Games, Katniss wondered why Haymitch hadn't sent him some stronger medicine other than the basic first-aid kit and a mildly-helping salve. The boy had increasingly more trouble with walking and he seemed to have a fever. He definitely needed an antibiotic, yet the time passed, and there were no more parachutes dropping from the sky. At first Katniss couldn't work out what was going on, since she couldn't believe that Haymitch would have just abandoned his tribute without a reason, but then it dawned on her that he must have run out of sponsors willing to pay that much money, so late in the Games. The boy didn't show enough promise, and simply didn't seem that interesting, even having the previous year's victor as his mentor. Haymitch had wasted his resources on the girl, trying to help her, when it was obvious that she wouldn't make it out of the arena. Then he was forced to idly watch his friend slowly wither away, probably cursing Haymitch in his head for not doing anything about it. Katniss couldn't think of a harsher way to learn that particular lesson.

She turned the video off the moment she saw the boy die.

She took a few deep breaths before stubbornly reaching for the next tape.

This time Haymitch's face during the Reaping looked even grimmer, but other than that, she didn't see much of a difference comparing to the previous year – he stood with his back straight and chin high. He certainly wasn't drunk.

She continued the pattern, watching the Reapings and then the Games up to the moment when both of the Twelve tributes were dead, and then skipping to the next year. Most of the time, it didn't take long before she had to switch tapes, anyway. Almost every year one or both tributes didn't even make it away from the Cornucopia. There were a few truly disturbing things she stumbled upon during her session, that she wished she could unsee and forget all about, like the year when the Gamemakers surprised the tributes by dumping them on the completely empty, flat arena and providing them with nothing but weapons, making for a rather short and very bloody Games.

What really shocked Katniss, though, was the recording from about five years after the second Quarter Quell, when one of the Twelve tributes wandered into a swamp. She watched the teenager struggling to get out of the bog and only managing to make things worse by quickening the process of sinking deeper into the trap. There were no trees or other objects nearby that could be used for leverage, even with the aid of a rope, so Katniss was surprised when she saw a parachute falling right into the tribute's hands. It didn't seem like there was anything that could be done, other than waiting for all that to end – probably a little more than an hour, judging from the tempo, so far. The package was very small, which should have been the first warning sign that something was wrong, but Katniss still stared in disbelief when she saw the minuscule bottle tucked neatly inside the silvery box. She knew immediately what it was, and judging from the look on the young tribute's face, she wasn't the only one. The kid looked up at the sky with a questioning look, clearly not wanting to believe it to be the final answer to the problem, and fiddled with the bottle. Survival instinct is a force to be reckoned with, so it wasn't strange at all that the unlucky tribute didn't seem to be pleased with the gift at first, or keen on using it, but as the mud continued to soundlessly creep in, closing to the ribcage-level, it became obvious that there would be no other options available. It was too soon in the Games to hope to outlive the opponents by simply lasting long enough. The only choice was between drowning in the muck and drinking the contents of the vial. And though Katniss wasn't sure how long she herself would have been willing to wait, had she been in the same position, in the end it didn't surprise her when she saw the teenager downing the potion in one big, desperate gulp.

The poison was a fast-working one and designed to bring mercy, not pain, so all there could be heard was a breathy sigh after a few seconds, and then the cannon, signalling the tribute's last breath. The camera showed the bog swallowing the body in what almost looked like a gentle embrace.

And yet, the next tape didn't seem to bring Katniss any resolution. With each Games, Haymitch looked a bit more tired, solemn, and older, but the change was gradual. She wasn't even sure what she was looking for, but she felt like there was _something_ she needed to see. There hadn't seemed to be anything she could pinpoint as a defining moment, a turning point, however, and she started to doubt whether what she was looking for even existed.

It was only when she was almost ready to give up the strange quest she'd put herself through and spare herself watching any more horrors, when she finally stumbled upon something resembling the answer to the enigma that was Haymitch Abernathy.

Nothing in the way that particular Games went seemed to point toward the fact that they might be considered particularly disastrous, at first. In fact, it looked like it wasn't going to be a bad year at all. The tributes were surprisingly promising, considering their home district's usual standards: especially the boy, who must have spent more than a few good months on some hard physical labour, as he'd clearly developed both some strength and stamina prior the Games. It didn't hurt that he was quick-learning either, or that he teamed from the start with another tribute, who proved a quite useful ally as well.

This was the longest Katniss had spent on watching one tape other than Haymitch's Games, up to date. One by one, the rivals fell, including the girl from Twelve, and Katniss found herself counting them down, despite the fact that she knew there was only one way the story could have ended. After all, she was well aware of the fact that Twelve hadn't had a single victor in the years between the second Quarter Quell and her own Games.

Ten more left.

Eight.

Five.

The boy's ally was killed, but he himself managed to escape to safety.

Three.

_Good heavens_ , Katniss thought.

There wasn't even much to do for Haymitch. There was only one instance when the boy needed his help, everything turning out well once Haymitch provided his tribute with what he needed at the moment, but other than that the guy just seemed to be incredibly lucky.

In hindsight, it wasn't that hard to understand why that might prove to be a hard pill to swallow for Haymitch and in consequence make him snap later on. It was with a sense of pity, that she knew he would have hated her for, that Katniss realised that this had probably been the first and maybe only time when Haymitch had let himself _believe_ that this time things could have turned out differently. That there had actually been a chance.

Hope. The most traitorous of feelings. Wasn't it ironic that _that_ would be the thing to undo a man as hardened and cynical as Haymitch?

She had a vague idea of what was going to happen. She just didn't predict as to _how_ it would happen.

She recognised the tactic from her own Games when she saw it: the Gamemakers were herding the remaining tributes for the finale. This time, they used an avalanche to force all the players into running toward one chosen spot. The boy from Twelve was good with avoiding the bigger stones, but it didn't help him one bit when one of the rocks that bounced much higher than the others hit him right in his left brow with enough force to make his entire head whip around. Without fanfare, the boy dropped unconscious –

...or at least that was what Katniss assumed had happened until she heard a cannon blast.

She stared at the unmoving body with what now appeared to be a cracked open skull. She was stunned enough that she didn't turn off the tape right away and saw the female tribute from Two winning the Games after dispatching of her remaining rival.

Katniss switched off the video, not wanting to watch the victor's interview. She stared at the tape in her hands with a heavy heart, before she slowly moved to change it for a new one. She felt like she herself could use a drink right about then, and the thought pulled a wry smirk on her lips. She already had a feeling as to what she was about to see, but she watched it play anyway.

Katniss knew she had been right the moment she saw the shot of the stage in front of the Justice Building from the reaping.

She stopped the recording, and sat in silence for a few minutes, finally understanding what she'd been looking for: the Haymitch that looked back at her from the screen was the one she knew.

She didn't even realise she was crying until she felt something tickling the skin on her cheek and she noticed with surprise that the hand she used to rub the itch off came back wet.

She hit the button on the remote and killed the screen's glow, bathing the room in darkness.

THE END

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TBC?


End file.
